Le 29 juin 2017
de 16h00 à 16h30
Le Patio (université de Strasbourg)
22 rue René Descartes, 67000 Strasbourg
salle 3201
Séance précomposée - Modulation as Perceived by the Listener
Pré-acte / Acte
Auteur : Miloš Zatkalik
Psychoanalytic explorations in music, from Ernst Kris, Heinz Kohut, to Stuart Feder, to Gilbert Rose and my own research, point to isomorphism between musical structures and processes on the one hand, and unconscious primary processes on the other, and demonstrate the role of primary process mechanisms (condensation, displacement, fragmentation) in various aspects of music (thematic procedures, large-scale formal processes, elaborations of fundamental structures etc.). Little research, however, has focused specifically on modulations from that vantage.
The present paper aims to shed light on the ways in which different modulation strategies relate to the unconscious mind. The psychoanalytic perspective on modulation is itself multifaceted. As examples from Mozart, Franck and Bartok will show, modulation can be viewed as an interplay between id, ego and superego, or between primary and secondary processes; its effects can be experienced as traumatic splitting and integration, loss and its denial; recurring tonalities are akin to the return of the repressed content, and so on. Of special interests are moments of modulation, as they involve condensation as a basic primary mechanism. Insofar as we accept – as some psychoanalysts argue – that all art invites a degree of fusion of subject and object, we can better understand the powerful effects of music, and modulation in particular, on the listener. Moreover, the very process of psychotherapy/psychoanalysis can involve moments comparable to modulations.
The paper also feeds back into psychoanalytic theories, providing support for the claim that both the creation and reception of music invoke the most archaic strata of human psyche, and more generally points to the capability of human mind to fluctuate between primary and secondary processes.
