Žarko Cvejić - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Žarko Cvejić

The synthesizer played a central role in Western popular music of the 1960s, 1970s, and well into... more The synthesizer played a central role in Western popular music of the 1960s, 1970s, and well into the 1980s, especially in so-called progressive rock and synth pop. And yet, there is still no book-length study of its impact on and meanings in this repertory. This text is a discussion of the main issues that such a study would have to address, along with a brief historical survey of the emergence and early development of the synthesizer.

philosophy (Schelling, Schopenhauer, Novalis, etc.), but also in literature. Such narratives and,... more philosophy (Schelling, Schopenhauer, Novalis, etc.), but also in literature. Such narratives and, as I argue in this paper, much of contemporary criticism of virtuosity were shaped by the uncanny feeling that the human subject, too, like automata and "automatic" virtuosi, may not be free, contrary to the Enlightenment view o f the human subject in Rousseau, Kant, and others, but actually under the power o f mechanisms beyond itself, operating automatically and not o f its own accord. In contemporary criticism o f virtuosity, the elu sive notions of expression, expressivity, expressive playing and the like, which were de liberately kept under-explained, were then marshalled to preserve the supposedly ineffable or at least ineffably human core of musical performance, in line with the contemporary Romantic view of music as the only means of expressing what is otherwise inexpressible, that is, ineffable.

Musicological Annual, 2021

This reappraisal of “Begegnung,” a seldom discussed Hugo Wolf setting of the eponymous poem by Ed... more This reappraisal of “Begegnung,” a seldom discussed Hugo Wolf setting of the eponymous poem by Eduard Mörike, shows that despite its ostensible simplicity, the poem, typically for Mörike, harbours a wealth of ambivalent meanings, which are only further enriched in Wolf’s setting.

New Sound

This article discusses the work of 19th-century gender norms in the reception of contemporary pia... more This article discusses the work of 19th-century gender norms in the reception of contemporary piano virtuose, led by Clara Wieck Schumann and Marie Moke Pleyel. The discussion reveals telling discrepancies between the reception of the virtuose and their male colleagues, such as Liszt, who were mostly celebrated in hyper-masculine terms, as "heroes", "gods", and the like, while the virtuose were praised mainly on account of their visual appearance rather than virtuosic prowess, rejecting any comparison on an equal footing with the virtuosi. Finally, in a number of reviews, Wieck and Moke were explicitly proclaimed "honorary males" on account of their skills. This shows 19th-century gender norms at work, reserving excellence in any intellectual task to men, even when displayed by women.

New Sound, 2019

In Paris in late 1935, the exiled German-Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin completed the first v... more In Paris in late 1935, the exiled German-Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin completed the first version of his well-known 'artwork essay', The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility. In that essay, Benjamin famously welcomed the loss of 'aura' in art, the mystique, quasi-religious quality of unique, original, authentic, and aesthetically autonomous works of art, due to the advent of mass reproduction of artworks on an industrial scale, especially in the new arts of photography and cinema, rendering many of those quasi-religious qualities of 'auratic' art obsolete. Benjamin welcomed this in accordance with his leftist, anti-fascist political agenda, hoping that the loss of 'aura' would open art to politicization, communism's (or, at any rate, Benjamin's) response to fascism's aestheticisation of politics. That same year, 1935, in Belgrade, the capital of what was then the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the Serbian-Jewish poet, ...

Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture, 2009

... University, Professor Judith Peraino, who also provided generous feedback to this paper in it... more ... University, Professor Judith Peraino, who also provided generous feedback to this paper in its many incarnations, as did Professor Amy Villarejo, also ... I am grateful to my colleague GaryMoulsdale of Cornell University for helping me understand and assess the vocal aspects of ...

The synthesizer played a central role in Western popular music of the 1960s, 1970s, and well into... more The synthesizer played a central role in Western popular music of the 1960s, 1970s, and well into the 1980s, especially in so-called progressive rock and synth pop. And yet, there is still no book-length study of its impact on and meanings in this repertory. This text is a discussion of the main issues that such a study would have to address, along with a brief historical survey of the emergence and early development of the synthesizer.

philosophy (Schelling, Schopenhauer, Novalis, etc.), but also in literature. Such narratives and,... more philosophy (Schelling, Schopenhauer, Novalis, etc.), but also in literature. Such narratives and, as I argue in this paper, much of contemporary criticism of virtuosity were shaped by the uncanny feeling that the human subject, too, like automata and "automatic" virtuosi, may not be free, contrary to the Enlightenment view o f the human subject in Rousseau, Kant, and others, but actually under the power o f mechanisms beyond itself, operating automatically and not o f its own accord. In contemporary criticism o f virtuosity, the elu sive notions of expression, expressivity, expressive playing and the like, which were de liberately kept under-explained, were then marshalled to preserve the supposedly ineffable or at least ineffably human core of musical performance, in line with the contemporary Romantic view of music as the only means of expressing what is otherwise inexpressible, that is, ineffable.

Musicological Annual, 2021

This reappraisal of “Begegnung,” a seldom discussed Hugo Wolf setting of the eponymous poem by Ed... more This reappraisal of “Begegnung,” a seldom discussed Hugo Wolf setting of the eponymous poem by Eduard Mörike, shows that despite its ostensible simplicity, the poem, typically for Mörike, harbours a wealth of ambivalent meanings, which are only further enriched in Wolf’s setting.

New Sound

This article discusses the work of 19th-century gender norms in the reception of contemporary pia... more This article discusses the work of 19th-century gender norms in the reception of contemporary piano virtuose, led by Clara Wieck Schumann and Marie Moke Pleyel. The discussion reveals telling discrepancies between the reception of the virtuose and their male colleagues, such as Liszt, who were mostly celebrated in hyper-masculine terms, as "heroes", "gods", and the like, while the virtuose were praised mainly on account of their visual appearance rather than virtuosic prowess, rejecting any comparison on an equal footing with the virtuosi. Finally, in a number of reviews, Wieck and Moke were explicitly proclaimed "honorary males" on account of their skills. This shows 19th-century gender norms at work, reserving excellence in any intellectual task to men, even when displayed by women.

New Sound, 2019

In Paris in late 1935, the exiled German-Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin completed the first v... more In Paris in late 1935, the exiled German-Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin completed the first version of his well-known 'artwork essay', The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility. In that essay, Benjamin famously welcomed the loss of 'aura' in art, the mystique, quasi-religious quality of unique, original, authentic, and aesthetically autonomous works of art, due to the advent of mass reproduction of artworks on an industrial scale, especially in the new arts of photography and cinema, rendering many of those quasi-religious qualities of 'auratic' art obsolete. Benjamin welcomed this in accordance with his leftist, anti-fascist political agenda, hoping that the loss of 'aura' would open art to politicization, communism's (or, at any rate, Benjamin's) response to fascism's aestheticisation of politics. That same year, 1935, in Belgrade, the capital of what was then the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the Serbian-Jewish poet, ...

Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture, 2009

... University, Professor Judith Peraino, who also provided generous feedback to this paper in it... more ... University, Professor Judith Peraino, who also provided generous feedback to this paper in its many incarnations, as did Professor Amy Villarejo, also ... I am grateful to my colleague GaryMoulsdale of Cornell University for helping me understand and assess the vocal aspects of ...