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Construction of the compositional persona in modern musical cultures : aesthetic meaning of avant-garde music

Construction of the compositional persona in modern musical cultures : aesthetic meaning of avant-garde music
Construction of the compositional persona in modern musical cultures : aesthetic meaning of avant-garde music

The issue of musical meaning has been addressed by numerous studies. However, most of them fail to grasp well the complex and flexible nature of actual musical listening because they attempt to explain aesthetic experience by models that come from other fields, such as compositional technique, music analysis, philosophy, and sociology. This thesis aims at proposing a model of explaining the aesthetic experience of music from a listener-oriented point of view instead of these prescriptive models, and examining the aesthetic meaning of European post-war avant-garde music by the proposed model. In Chapter 1,1 discuss the intentionality of aesthetic experience, making reference to phenomenology and reception theory. Chapter 2 criticises the absolutist aesthetics and attempts to enlarge the range of aesthetic meaning. In Chapter 3, based on the cognitive theory known as 'conceptual blending', I argue that aesthetic experience is metaphorical in nature, and that conceptual blending can be identified in listening experience through analysing critical discourse. In the next two chapters, I examine the aesthetic meaning of avant-garde music through discourse analysis. Chapter 4 deals with culturally formed blends: the issues of modernism and composer's intention. They are not fundamental aspects of aesthetic experience, but play an important role as environment surrounding it. In Chapter 5,1 propose the idea of the compositional persona as the fundamental mode of blending in listening to music. Analysing the critical discourse makes it clear that the compositional persona is constructed fi-om various kinds of images and concepts, and that it is a fertile mental space in which various concepts are connected into a network. The discourse analysis also reveals that the grounds of the aesthetic meanings of avant-garde music are rooted in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century musical culture.

University of Southampton
Shibuya, Masako
1cc45244-5085-4c82-bbf1-fe94b20ce1b0
Shibuya, Masako
1cc45244-5085-4c82-bbf1-fe94b20ce1b0

Shibuya, Masako (2000) Construction of the compositional persona in modern musical cultures : aesthetic meaning of avant-garde music. University of Southampton, Doctoral Thesis.

Record type: Thesis (Doctoral)

Abstract

The issue of musical meaning has been addressed by numerous studies. However, most of them fail to grasp well the complex and flexible nature of actual musical listening because they attempt to explain aesthetic experience by models that come from other fields, such as compositional technique, music analysis, philosophy, and sociology. This thesis aims at proposing a model of explaining the aesthetic experience of music from a listener-oriented point of view instead of these prescriptive models, and examining the aesthetic meaning of European post-war avant-garde music by the proposed model. In Chapter 1,1 discuss the intentionality of aesthetic experience, making reference to phenomenology and reception theory. Chapter 2 criticises the absolutist aesthetics and attempts to enlarge the range of aesthetic meaning. In Chapter 3, based on the cognitive theory known as 'conceptual blending', I argue that aesthetic experience is metaphorical in nature, and that conceptual blending can be identified in listening experience through analysing critical discourse. In the next two chapters, I examine the aesthetic meaning of avant-garde music through discourse analysis. Chapter 4 deals with culturally formed blends: the issues of modernism and composer's intention. They are not fundamental aspects of aesthetic experience, but play an important role as environment surrounding it. In Chapter 5,1 propose the idea of the compositional persona as the fundamental mode of blending in listening to music. Analysing the critical discourse makes it clear that the compositional persona is constructed fi-om various kinds of images and concepts, and that it is a fertile mental space in which various concepts are connected into a network. The discourse analysis also reveals that the grounds of the aesthetic meanings of avant-garde music are rooted in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century musical culture.

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Published date: 2000

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Local EPrints ID: 464424
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/464424
PURE UUID: 4d45efcf-9b47-4978-9934-df0f4466b750

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Date deposited: 04 Jul 2022 23:36
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 19:30

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Contributors

Author: Masako Shibuya

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