Number 14, 1994

EN:

This paper addresses the researcher's double challenge: to acknowledge and situate contrasting experiences of the same phenomenon and yet to integrate them into a personal rendition of that phenomenon. An examination of the various strategies employed in ethnographic writing, from the copious use of quotations to dialogical or polyphonic writing, shows how contradictory viewpoints have been given more attention in ethnographic literature, as the politics of representation have developed into an important debate in the social sciences. While these various approaches have undeniably allowed more voices to be heard, they have nevertheless left unanswered the problem of interpretation in the case of contested appropriations or contradictory versions of the same phenomenon. The simple fact of integrating various voices in an ethnography does not indeed constitute in an by itself an explanation of what is being said and why.

This paper examines possible uses and treatments of diverging voices in ethnographic writing. By way of illustration, I emphasize the great complexity of the responses and interpretations generated by zouk, a mass-distributed popular music from the West Indies, by presenting contrasting voices and viewpoints from the islands of Guadeloupe, Martinique, Domenica, and Haiti. By doing so, I show, on the one hand, how each viewpoint can provide distinct types of knowledge. On the other hand, I argue that while there can be no analysis which can provide final answers to the questions raised by controversial phenomenon such as zouk, not all the points of view should be accorded the same importance.

EN:

This paper examines traditionally-oriented teaching and learning processes in Japanese koto music. Earlier evaluations (negative and positive) by Western scholars are introduced, together with a brief comparison to Western practices. A distinction is made between "inside" and "outside" students; the former have greater exposure to music and speech about music, and teaching methods also may differ. Traditional methods of learning through imitation are shown to have other musical goals besides the transmission of musical "text." Playing together is fundamental; teachers may use speech, shôga (oral representation of instrumental sound), or purely musical means to convey information to the student. Notation, often used nowadays, is nevertheless of relatively minor importance. The dominant values underlying traditional teaching methods are expressed through the phrase "if you can steal it, that's OK." Finally, concepts of "text" and "interpretation" are considered in relation to values concerning change in traditional koto music.

EN:

One of the difficulties in creating an adequate picture of the contextual situation for music, other than that clearly associated with the liturgy, in the Middle Ages, is the paucity of accounts describing performance circumstances. We know little about the social milieu and purposes attending genres marginal to the liturgy such as the conductus and thirteenth-century motet. A manuscript which seems to redress this problem, albeit for one very specific instance, is Vat. lat. 2854 in the Vatican library in Rome.

This manuscript is unusual in that it contains not only music but a detailed account of why the music was written. The author, Bonaiutus de Casentino, active in the circle of Pope Boniface VIII, prepared the manuscript in the last decade of the thirteenth century at Rome. The document includes various poems, sacred and secular, as well as two Latin songs written in late Franconian notation. One of the pieces is a two-voice conductus (Hec medela corporalis) which was written, according to the account of Bonaiutus himself, in order to cure the maladies of an ailing pontif. The pontifical complaints seemed to be both psychological and intestinal in nature. It was the hope of Bonaiutus not only to provoke laughter (always a curative), but also to cleanse the papal bowels through his composition. Although one cannot generalize on the basis of this single incident, it does yield a fascinating glimpse into a possible venue for the conductus.

FR:

Cette étude présente une série de faits mettant en évidence la présence de la musique de Wagner au Québec au tournant du siècle grâce aux échanges culturels entre les États-Unis, la France et le Canada et grâce à deux personnalités musicales importantes de cette période : le chef d’orchestre américain Theodore Thomas et le compositeur canadien Guillaume Couture. L’auteure étudie d’abord les premiers contacts entre l’Amérique et la musique de Wagner avant 1883, puis analyse les événements musicaux de la période 1884–1914 et termine par un survol des concerts de l’Orchestre symphonique de Montréal donnés entre 1938 et 1948.

EN:

In her celebrated essay, "Notes on Camp," Susan Sontag identifies Richard Strauss’s most famous opera, Der Rosenkavalier as forming part of the canon of "camp." What is it about this work and its relationship to fin-de-siècle Vienna which gives it over to the "camp" aesthetic?

In this article, the author examines the essence of the style known as camp, as derived from kitsch, another mode of "failed seriousness." Central to this investigation is the manner in which certain aesthetic objects can inhabit the realms of "high" or "serious" art and also that of popular culture. Hermann Broch, Theodor Adorno, and others suggest that kitsch is a parasitic ingredient in bourgeois culture and that this element can invade and "negate" an aesthetic object or experience. The historical imperatives found in romantic opera, bourgeois culture, and marginalized groups form an important element in defining the creations of modernist culture.

Part of our understanding of what constitutes "serious" art has at its centre ways of maintaining autonomy and refusing the prospect of "negating" itself. One way of experiencing and examining those works which "refuse the burden of autonomy" is through the categories of questionable or marginal sensibilities, in this case: kitsch and camp.

Der Rosenkavalier, with its fawning tribute to eighteenth-century Vienna, overt homage to Mozart, and its heralding of the composer's withdrawal from the avant-garde, proves to be a superb example of alternative sensibilities.

FR:

Nous considérons ici les visées didactiques et certains aspects structurels de la théorie de Heinrich Schenker dans la perspective de l’apprentissage de l’analyse musicale en milieu universitaire de tradition musicologique française. Dans un premier temps, nous posons la question de la pertinence de l’enseignement de l’analyse schenkérienne. Nous mettons en évidence les aspects de la théorie qui la distinguent des théories tonales antérieures et qui représentent des acquis substantiels pour l’étude de la tonalité. Puis, nous évaluons les difficultés inhérentes à la diffusion des idées de Schenker dans les milieux pédagogiques, soit la complexité de son œuvre, l’absence d’un traité d’harmonie à teneur schenkérienne en langue française et l’exploration des niveaux de structure intermédiaire (Mittelgrund). Par la suite, nous définissons les étapes préalables à l’apprentissage des techniques schenkériennes, notamment l’étude des espèces fuxiennes et de l’harmonie, cette dernière enseignée dans une perspective linéaire. Enfin, nous analysons l’Invention 12 en la majeur, BWV 783, de Johann Sebastian Bach. L’analyse met en évidence la relation entre les principes contrapuntiques présentés dans les étapes préalables et les différents niveaux de structure de l’œuvre. Un graphe schenkérien illustre l’interdépendance des niveaux de structure.

EN:

In this paper, the author considers three aspects of the core curriculum: the mixture of poetics (the craft of music making) and apologetics (the argument for a canon of masterworks), the theoretical training of literate musicians, and the vehicles for bringing about curriculum change. Within this framework, the author addresses the theory text of Edward Aldwell and Carl Schachter, as well as essays by Christopher Lewis, Richard Wollheim, James Clifford, and Estelle Jorgensen. The author finds in the present curriculum an uncomfortable balance of craft and argument, and an orientation toward rote learning of a canon rather than a critical approach to knowledge skills. He finds as well little or no scholarly mechanism for curriculum development.