Le 1er juillet 2017
de 10h00 à 10h30
Le Patio (université de Strasbourg)
22 rue René Descartes, 67000 Strasbourg
salle 3202
Séance - Contemporary Musical Horizons (II)
Pré-acte / Acte
Auteur : Christopher Segall
Alfred Schnittke’s concept of polystylism has not clearly been distinguished from collage. For this reason, the String Quartet No. 3 (1983)—which opens with quotations from Lasso, Beethoven, and Shostakovich, all labeled in the score—has been understood as a hallmark polystylistic work. Hartmut Schick interprets the quotations as establishing a historical trajectory within which the work situates itself. Jeanette Bicknell, however, problematizes the quotations, suggesting that listeners will not recognize them without the score labels. My paper responds with an esthesic analysis that shifts attention to the work’s atonal and serial aspects. I argue that the quotations themselves play a nominal role. Rather, a referential sonority (set-class 0167) and a twelve-tone row, derived from pitch-cipher monograms for Lasso and Beethoven (first identified by Schick) heard immediately following the quotations, constitute the quartet’s primary materials. More broadly, I clarify precisely how polystylism differs from collage, distinguishing stylization (reference to an earlier style) from quotation (reference to an existing work, not necessarily as in its original context). Overall, this paper attempts to dismantle prevailing assumptions about the quartet and about polystylism in general. First, the quotations are less important to the work’s structure than the materials they generate. Second, the quotations, estranged from their stylistic contexts, may not be recognized as such by listeners. Third, I argue that the work cannot be understood as polystylistic, as the quotations presented in the opening collage are not all stylized. Finally, the paper offers an esthesic model for analyzing quotation-based composition.
