Wolfgang Marx | University College Dublin (original) (raw)
Papers by Wolfgang Marx
Studia Musicologica 64/1-2 (2023), 121–131, 2024
György Ligeti was very interested in many artistic and scientific fields and drew inspiration for... more György Ligeti was very interested in many artistic and scientific fields and drew inspiration for his compositional work from them (his engagement with mathematics particularly fractal geometry and chaos theory is perhaps the best known). In this chapter I compare the concept of artistic research with Ligeti's practice and oeuvre. While the notion of artistic research was only appearing in embryonic form during the latter stages of Ligeti's career, many though not all of his statements seem to be suitable for describing his artistic processes. The benefit of this investigation is expected to be twofold: applying the concept of artistic research to Ligeti's approaches and practices should yield new insights on the relationship between his work and his interest in other humanities and sciences. Yet this look at Ligeti may also help to refine the concept of artistic research as discussed and applied to the artistic output of today.
Music Criticism – Yesterday and Today, Studia musicologia Labacensia 7, 147-167, 2024
Music criticism in Ireland has followed the general developments in other countries, yet with som... more Music criticism in Ireland has followed the general developments in other countries, yet with some specific deviations due to local conditions. This chapter looks at examples from three different periods of its history: the emergence of Irish music criticism in the mid-nineteenth century, the later part of the twentieth century as exemplified by the career of Charles Acton, and the impact of the digital revolution in the twenty-first century.
In its early days, reviews in Irish newspapers could be of very low quality, often written by journalists without any music-specific knowledge. Statements about the pieces performed and the quality of their renditions were regularly bland and uninformed.
Charles Acton’s term as main concert reviewer of the Irish Times marks a high point of music criticism in Ireland. The quality of reviews had improved significantly, and Acton’s influence beyond the pages of his newspaper attests to the regard he was held in by the Irish musical scene.
The changes in music criticism triggered by the digital revolution are not specific to Ireland; they occur everywhere in equal measure. An online journal such as GoldenPlec demonstrates how only unpaid work can keep a small enterprise going, yet informal music criticism on social media reaches across geographical boundaries and can easily involve people from several continents.
Die Musikforschung 76/4, 2023
This essay analyses the history and structure of the Society for Musicology in Ireland, comparing... more This essay analyses the history and structure of the Society for Musicology in Ireland, comparing it to its sister organisations in Germany, Switzerland, Austria and the UK in particular.
Music and Death. Funeral Music, Memory and Re-Evaluating Life, 2023
Music and Death. Funeral Music, Memory and Re-Evaluating Life, 2023
Music Societies in the Long 19th Century: Between Amateur and Professional Culture. Studia musicologica Labacensia 6. 193-213., 2023
In the nineteenth century Ireland was part of the United Kingdom. While it never was a “Land ohne... more In the nineteenth century Ireland was part of the United Kingdom. While it never was a “Land ohne Musik” in quite the same way as England, its musical life in the 1800s was significantly diminished compared to the previous century. This had political reasons: The Irish parliament was dissolved in 1800, and virtually all aristocrats who had served as patrons of the arts relocated to London where all power now resided. At the same time Ireland remained relatively untouched by the industrial revolution so that neither rich industrialists nor a sizeable middle class that could have replaced them emerged in numbers comparable to other countries.
This chapter compares musical life in the Irish long nineteenth century in an administrative, an economic and an ecclesiastical centre: Dublin, Belfast and Armagh. It looks at the extent of the concert life in those cities, its amateur and professional culture, and key players/institutions/societies that influenced its development up to the First World War and Irish independence in 1922. A special focus will lie on the role of the Gaelic revival movement. Its goal of a “De-Anglicisation of Ireland” was pursued via a three-pronged strategy: reintroducing/furthering the use of the Irish language, of specific Irish sports (Irish football, hurling/camogie) and – last but not least – of Irish music. The Gaelic League (founded in 1893) was a key player in this effort, as was the Feis Ceoil (an annual competitive music festival first held in 1897).
Lithuanian Musicology 23, 2022
This essay aims to investigate the role the category of genre has in music-related discourses in ... more This essay aims to investigate the role the category of genre has in music-related discourses in an age characterized by its interest in the liminal, or the non-generic. The objective is determining whether the concept of genre still has a useful role to play today (when many discard it for a range of different reasons). The hypothesis is that genre can no longer be used as a normative, taxonomic category, yet that it continues to fulfil a crucial function as a “generic contract,” an agent of communication that provides information influencing and facilitating the reception of music. Taking a digital graphic representation of popular-music genres as a starting point, the problems and challenges of generic classifications in today’s world are outlined, proposed alternative approaches (such as the “post-genre” phenomenon) are explored, and recent musicological thinking on the topic is assessed. A look at the structure and function of Spotify’s map of “genre-shaped distinctions” leads to a discussion of the function of genres in the digital music industry: its ultimate aim is the classification of the listener, rather than the music, for the purpose of micro-targeting. This leads to an assessment of genre as an agent of power and the potential of emic and etic points of view to expand our perspective. The essay concludes that both the communicative and the economic functions of the genre category are united by their application in a liminal context in which uniqueness and hybridity appear to deny the usefulness of genres while paradoxically still relying on them.
Keywords: Music and genre, musical classification, music and taxonomy, music and the digital economy, micro-targeting, music and power,
emic and etic approaches to music, post-genre.
Grief, Identity and the Arts. A Multidisciplinary Perspective on Expressions of Grief, 2023
Music has been linked to grief and death since human beings started expressing themselves musical... more Music has been linked to grief and death since human beings started expressing themselves musically; there is hardly any culture on our planet that does not have a musical aspect to its funeral rites. It has also been a perennial topic of art music, not just in song, madrigal, and sacred genres such as cantata or passion but even in instrumental music particularly since the Romantic age. This chapter describes functions and structural means of musical engagement with death, focusing on Western art music. It will discuss a range of theoretical approaches including Philip Tagg’s identification of “traditional” Western markers of funereal music, Martin Lodge’s classification of death-related musical functions, Sebastian Leikert’s psychoanalytical interpretation of music’s cathartic capacities, and others. Martin Spitzer’s analysis of emotion in music informs the look at how music engages with these functions. While grief is a central reaction to death, it rarely is the only one–funereal music often engages with a range of emotions, serving several functions at once such as celebrating a deceased’s achievements or being part of a succession rite. However, in the vast majority of cases grief and consolation remain the focal points around which many other emotions and functions coalesce.
Music in German Politics / Politics in German Music. Edinburgh German Yearbook, vol. 13, pp. 169-185, 2022
Music played a central part in the thinking of Ernst Bloch. He first engaged with it in "Geist de... more Music played a central part in the thinking of Ernst Bloch. He first engaged with it in "Geist der Utopie", which contains large sections entirely dedicated to music, while it also occupies a central position in his later magnum opus "Das Prinzip Hoffnung". The trumpet call in Beethoven’s "Fidelio" that announces the arrival of the minister and thus the end of all trials and tribulations serves as Bloch’s most powerful example of a work of art anticipating how utopian hope can ultimately be fulfilled.
So far, musicological engagements with Bloch (for example by Benjamin Korstvedt, Michael Gallope, or Matthias Henke and Franceska Vidal) have mainly focused on what kind of knowledge about music Bloch had, what he had read, and also what his limitations were and how he got certain details wrong (paying special attention to "Geist der Utopie"). My proposed chapter will rather look at music’s role from a political and philosophical point of view, focusing on "Das Prinzip Hoffnung": Why did Bloch associate music with such a high degree of agency when it comes to evoking or sustaining utopian hope? What is its special potential compared to all the other arts, crafts and activities he analyses? And what has the political concept of utopian hope to offer in the early 21st century? In intellectual circles the proclamation of the end of grand narratives seemed to have killed off utopian concepts while on the other hand utopian worlds appear to have migrated to the digital universe where they can be accessed individually by role players via avatars (and where music plays yet again a central role in creating those worlds). Maybe our post-factual age of often dangerous nostalgic retro-utopias (“Make America great again!”) should re-engage with Bloch’s positive, future-oriented hope, and with it the potential music has to unlock it.
INSAM Journal of Contemporary Music, Art and Technology 6: Music, Art and Humanities in the Time of Global Crisis, 2021
"20 Shots of Opera", released in December 2020, is a series of twenty short pieces of music theat... more "20 Shots of Opera", released in December 2020, is a series of twenty short pieces of music theatre between five and eight minutes long. They were created and produced in just a few months. What makes the pieces special is that they were conceived to be produced under pandemic conditions and with purely an online reception in mind. This has affected details of the recording process as well as directorial concepts such as the use of animation or superimposition of pictures. This article will analyse how selected Shots engage with these conditions, look at different types of how the voices are used and assess the specific aesthetic circumstances of digital reception, as well as discussing other specific challenges and opportunities of creating music theatre in times of Covid-19.
A Tribute to György Ligeti in his Native Transylvania Nos. 1–2, eds Bianca Tiplea Temes, and Kofi Agawu, 1-27., 2020
An assessment of Ligeti's speeches and writings regarding their earning potential, their PR funct... more An assessment of Ligeti's speeches and writings regarding their earning potential, their PR function and their role in influencing the public discourse about him and his music.
Anklaenge 2018. Die Musikgeschichte des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts im universitären Unterricht – The Teaching of Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century Music History at Universities and Conservatories of Music, 2019
This text offers a brief assessment of the role of contemporary art music in the curricula of Iri... more This text offers a brief assessment of the role of contemporary art music in the curricula of Irish universities, TUs, ITs and conservatories.
Journal of Czech and Slovak Music 28/2019, 2020
This article discusses the appearance of a motto (in its original shape and in variants) througho... more This article discusses the appearance of a motto (in its original shape and in variants) throughout Antonín Dvořák's Requiem, reading it as a representation as a musical "other" that in this context may stand for death and an - ultimately unsuccessful - attempt to integrate it musically into normal proceedings.
The Role of National Opera Houses in the 20th and 21st Centuries, Studia musicologica Labacensia 3, 2019
This essay offers a comparison of the provision of opera in Ireland (particularly in Dublin) in t... more This essay offers a comparison of the provision of opera in Ireland (particularly in Dublin) in the early twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, with a special focus on structural issues such as the number of opera companies, the size of venues or the degree of state support. It shows that despite a recent increase in the number of productions and performances there still were more performances at least in Dublin (although probably not elsewhere in the country) a century ago. There is a recently designated “National Opera House” in a small town in the Irish South-East which remains unused for most of the year while there is also a recently formed “Irish National Opera” company which does not have a home venue. In 2017/18 opera productions in Ireland were run by sixteen different national and international companies, ranging from full-scale productions of canonic and (surprisingly many) non-canonic works to concert performances and smaller productions with reduced orchestras. Long-term strategic planning is very difficult due to the Irish Arts Council’s funding strategy. However, about three new operas per year are currently funded, commissioned and premiered in Ireland.
Who telleth a tale of unspeaking death? Dublin Death Studies 2, ed. Wolfgang Marx, 2017
This essay analyses the "Berliner Requiem", a "secular cantata" by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht ... more This essay analyses the "Berliner Requiem", a "secular cantata" by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht premiered in 1929, as an engagement with what Achille Mbembe has described as "necropolitics", also taking into account earlier concepts developed by Elias Canetti and Herbert Marcuse. Written in commemoration of the First World War, the piece addresses death (certainly death in war) as something that is unnecessary and could - indeed should - be prevented.
György Ligeti's Cultural Identities, eds Amy Bauer, Márton Kerékfy (Routledge: New York, London, 2017)., 2017
This essay looks at aspects of Ligeti's musical style in the light of his experiences during the ... more This essay looks at aspects of Ligeti's musical style in the light of his experiences during the holocaust and under communist rule in post-war Hungary. Based on Jeffrey C. Alexander's concept of cultural trauma and Maria Cizmic's study of trauma expressed in the music of other Eastern-European composers, elements such as micropolyphony, the treatment of text or the play with tuning systems, but also the use of allusions or of the lament are linked to fragmentation, collage, irony, non-teleological structuring and other strategies described by Cizmic as related to musico-artistic responses to traumatic experiences.
Studia Musicologica, 2016
This essay identifies three reasons that help explain why György Ligeti was highly active as a sp... more This essay identifies three reasons that help explain why György Ligeti was highly active as a speaker and author of texts about music throughout his career. They thereby replenished his income (particularly before 1973), asserted his auctorial authority vis-à-vis musicological interpretations and – at least indirectly – secured a better “share of the market” for his own music by being present in the public eye. This essay also discusses the reliability of Ligeti’s assertions, warning against an over-reliance on composers’ views on the part of musicologists.
In 'Who telleth a Tale of Unspeaking Death? Dublin Death Studies 2', ed. Wolfgang Marx (Dublin: C... more In 'Who telleth a Tale of Unspeaking Death? Dublin Death Studies 2', ed. Wolfgang Marx (Dublin: Carysfort Press, 2017), 1-6.
Death and the Irish. A Miscellany
(Forthcoming - October 2016) Raymond Deane's "Seachanges (with Danse Macabre)", part of his "Maca... more (Forthcoming - October 2016)
Raymond Deane's "Seachanges (with Danse Macabre)", part of his "Macabre Trilogy", refers to death in several different ways. This brief essay outlines how the work's title, motivic and structural elements and its instrumentation support this notion before linking it to the state of Irish art music in general.
Among the other over seventy topics treated in this anthology are the following: the Galway girl who was buried with her horse in the fifth or sixth century; the account of the curious death of a little-known Irish saint in medieval Norway; the Black Death in Kilkenny; death and sexual transgression in medieval Ireland; grisly deaths from the Irish annals; the funerary monuments of clerical wives in early modern Ireland; the forgotten Connacht massacre of 1647; a seventeenth-century Belfast ghost story; an Irish story of cannibalism on the high seas; the records of an Offaly coroner during the Great Famine; the Derry ghost who imparted information on the missing Franklin expedition in the Arctic in 1849; Jewish burial customs in nineteenth-century Ireland; death and Irish freemasonry; the Irishman whose body was shipped back to Ireland from Italy in an upright piano; death in Irish folklore; the history of children’s burial grounds in Ireland; the ritual of tobacco use at Irish wakes; memorial cards and Irish funerary culture; death in Irish sermons; funeral rites among the Irish Travelling community; death and dying in contemporary Irish pagan belief; the link between commemoration of the dead and humour; deathbed visions; attitudes towards death and dying in modern Ireland, including the impact of social media on the culture of commemorating the dead.
Hanne Darboven. Enlightenment - Time Histories. A Retrospective, Dec 2015
In this essay I discuss my collaboration with the German conceptual artist Hanne Darboven which l... more In this essay I discuss my collaboration with the German conceptual artist Hanne Darboven which lasted from 2002 until her death in 2009. Darboven converted her visual artworks into a self-devised musical notation which required arrangement by a collaborator to allow for them to be performed by musicians. I discuss the ways in which I arranged some of those works as well as what working with Darboven was like.
Studia Musicologica 64/1-2 (2023), 121–131, 2024
György Ligeti was very interested in many artistic and scientific fields and drew inspiration for... more György Ligeti was very interested in many artistic and scientific fields and drew inspiration for his compositional work from them (his engagement with mathematics particularly fractal geometry and chaos theory is perhaps the best known). In this chapter I compare the concept of artistic research with Ligeti's practice and oeuvre. While the notion of artistic research was only appearing in embryonic form during the latter stages of Ligeti's career, many though not all of his statements seem to be suitable for describing his artistic processes. The benefit of this investigation is expected to be twofold: applying the concept of artistic research to Ligeti's approaches and practices should yield new insights on the relationship between his work and his interest in other humanities and sciences. Yet this look at Ligeti may also help to refine the concept of artistic research as discussed and applied to the artistic output of today.
Music Criticism – Yesterday and Today, Studia musicologia Labacensia 7, 147-167, 2024
Music criticism in Ireland has followed the general developments in other countries, yet with som... more Music criticism in Ireland has followed the general developments in other countries, yet with some specific deviations due to local conditions. This chapter looks at examples from three different periods of its history: the emergence of Irish music criticism in the mid-nineteenth century, the later part of the twentieth century as exemplified by the career of Charles Acton, and the impact of the digital revolution in the twenty-first century.
In its early days, reviews in Irish newspapers could be of very low quality, often written by journalists without any music-specific knowledge. Statements about the pieces performed and the quality of their renditions were regularly bland and uninformed.
Charles Acton’s term as main concert reviewer of the Irish Times marks a high point of music criticism in Ireland. The quality of reviews had improved significantly, and Acton’s influence beyond the pages of his newspaper attests to the regard he was held in by the Irish musical scene.
The changes in music criticism triggered by the digital revolution are not specific to Ireland; they occur everywhere in equal measure. An online journal such as GoldenPlec demonstrates how only unpaid work can keep a small enterprise going, yet informal music criticism on social media reaches across geographical boundaries and can easily involve people from several continents.
Die Musikforschung 76/4, 2023
This essay analyses the history and structure of the Society for Musicology in Ireland, comparing... more This essay analyses the history and structure of the Society for Musicology in Ireland, comparing it to its sister organisations in Germany, Switzerland, Austria and the UK in particular.
Music and Death. Funeral Music, Memory and Re-Evaluating Life, 2023
Music and Death. Funeral Music, Memory and Re-Evaluating Life, 2023
Music Societies in the Long 19th Century: Between Amateur and Professional Culture. Studia musicologica Labacensia 6. 193-213., 2023
In the nineteenth century Ireland was part of the United Kingdom. While it never was a “Land ohne... more In the nineteenth century Ireland was part of the United Kingdom. While it never was a “Land ohne Musik” in quite the same way as England, its musical life in the 1800s was significantly diminished compared to the previous century. This had political reasons: The Irish parliament was dissolved in 1800, and virtually all aristocrats who had served as patrons of the arts relocated to London where all power now resided. At the same time Ireland remained relatively untouched by the industrial revolution so that neither rich industrialists nor a sizeable middle class that could have replaced them emerged in numbers comparable to other countries.
This chapter compares musical life in the Irish long nineteenth century in an administrative, an economic and an ecclesiastical centre: Dublin, Belfast and Armagh. It looks at the extent of the concert life in those cities, its amateur and professional culture, and key players/institutions/societies that influenced its development up to the First World War and Irish independence in 1922. A special focus will lie on the role of the Gaelic revival movement. Its goal of a “De-Anglicisation of Ireland” was pursued via a three-pronged strategy: reintroducing/furthering the use of the Irish language, of specific Irish sports (Irish football, hurling/camogie) and – last but not least – of Irish music. The Gaelic League (founded in 1893) was a key player in this effort, as was the Feis Ceoil (an annual competitive music festival first held in 1897).
Lithuanian Musicology 23, 2022
This essay aims to investigate the role the category of genre has in music-related discourses in ... more This essay aims to investigate the role the category of genre has in music-related discourses in an age characterized by its interest in the liminal, or the non-generic. The objective is determining whether the concept of genre still has a useful role to play today (when many discard it for a range of different reasons). The hypothesis is that genre can no longer be used as a normative, taxonomic category, yet that it continues to fulfil a crucial function as a “generic contract,” an agent of communication that provides information influencing and facilitating the reception of music. Taking a digital graphic representation of popular-music genres as a starting point, the problems and challenges of generic classifications in today’s world are outlined, proposed alternative approaches (such as the “post-genre” phenomenon) are explored, and recent musicological thinking on the topic is assessed. A look at the structure and function of Spotify’s map of “genre-shaped distinctions” leads to a discussion of the function of genres in the digital music industry: its ultimate aim is the classification of the listener, rather than the music, for the purpose of micro-targeting. This leads to an assessment of genre as an agent of power and the potential of emic and etic points of view to expand our perspective. The essay concludes that both the communicative and the economic functions of the genre category are united by their application in a liminal context in which uniqueness and hybridity appear to deny the usefulness of genres while paradoxically still relying on them.
Keywords: Music and genre, musical classification, music and taxonomy, music and the digital economy, micro-targeting, music and power,
emic and etic approaches to music, post-genre.
Grief, Identity and the Arts. A Multidisciplinary Perspective on Expressions of Grief, 2023
Music has been linked to grief and death since human beings started expressing themselves musical... more Music has been linked to grief and death since human beings started expressing themselves musically; there is hardly any culture on our planet that does not have a musical aspect to its funeral rites. It has also been a perennial topic of art music, not just in song, madrigal, and sacred genres such as cantata or passion but even in instrumental music particularly since the Romantic age. This chapter describes functions and structural means of musical engagement with death, focusing on Western art music. It will discuss a range of theoretical approaches including Philip Tagg’s identification of “traditional” Western markers of funereal music, Martin Lodge’s classification of death-related musical functions, Sebastian Leikert’s psychoanalytical interpretation of music’s cathartic capacities, and others. Martin Spitzer’s analysis of emotion in music informs the look at how music engages with these functions. While grief is a central reaction to death, it rarely is the only one–funereal music often engages with a range of emotions, serving several functions at once such as celebrating a deceased’s achievements or being part of a succession rite. However, in the vast majority of cases grief and consolation remain the focal points around which many other emotions and functions coalesce.
Music in German Politics / Politics in German Music. Edinburgh German Yearbook, vol. 13, pp. 169-185, 2022
Music played a central part in the thinking of Ernst Bloch. He first engaged with it in "Geist de... more Music played a central part in the thinking of Ernst Bloch. He first engaged with it in "Geist der Utopie", which contains large sections entirely dedicated to music, while it also occupies a central position in his later magnum opus "Das Prinzip Hoffnung". The trumpet call in Beethoven’s "Fidelio" that announces the arrival of the minister and thus the end of all trials and tribulations serves as Bloch’s most powerful example of a work of art anticipating how utopian hope can ultimately be fulfilled.
So far, musicological engagements with Bloch (for example by Benjamin Korstvedt, Michael Gallope, or Matthias Henke and Franceska Vidal) have mainly focused on what kind of knowledge about music Bloch had, what he had read, and also what his limitations were and how he got certain details wrong (paying special attention to "Geist der Utopie"). My proposed chapter will rather look at music’s role from a political and philosophical point of view, focusing on "Das Prinzip Hoffnung": Why did Bloch associate music with such a high degree of agency when it comes to evoking or sustaining utopian hope? What is its special potential compared to all the other arts, crafts and activities he analyses? And what has the political concept of utopian hope to offer in the early 21st century? In intellectual circles the proclamation of the end of grand narratives seemed to have killed off utopian concepts while on the other hand utopian worlds appear to have migrated to the digital universe where they can be accessed individually by role players via avatars (and where music plays yet again a central role in creating those worlds). Maybe our post-factual age of often dangerous nostalgic retro-utopias (“Make America great again!”) should re-engage with Bloch’s positive, future-oriented hope, and with it the potential music has to unlock it.
INSAM Journal of Contemporary Music, Art and Technology 6: Music, Art and Humanities in the Time of Global Crisis, 2021
"20 Shots of Opera", released in December 2020, is a series of twenty short pieces of music theat... more "20 Shots of Opera", released in December 2020, is a series of twenty short pieces of music theatre between five and eight minutes long. They were created and produced in just a few months. What makes the pieces special is that they were conceived to be produced under pandemic conditions and with purely an online reception in mind. This has affected details of the recording process as well as directorial concepts such as the use of animation or superimposition of pictures. This article will analyse how selected Shots engage with these conditions, look at different types of how the voices are used and assess the specific aesthetic circumstances of digital reception, as well as discussing other specific challenges and opportunities of creating music theatre in times of Covid-19.
A Tribute to György Ligeti in his Native Transylvania Nos. 1–2, eds Bianca Tiplea Temes, and Kofi Agawu, 1-27., 2020
An assessment of Ligeti's speeches and writings regarding their earning potential, their PR funct... more An assessment of Ligeti's speeches and writings regarding their earning potential, their PR function and their role in influencing the public discourse about him and his music.
Anklaenge 2018. Die Musikgeschichte des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts im universitären Unterricht – The Teaching of Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century Music History at Universities and Conservatories of Music, 2019
This text offers a brief assessment of the role of contemporary art music in the curricula of Iri... more This text offers a brief assessment of the role of contemporary art music in the curricula of Irish universities, TUs, ITs and conservatories.
Journal of Czech and Slovak Music 28/2019, 2020
This article discusses the appearance of a motto (in its original shape and in variants) througho... more This article discusses the appearance of a motto (in its original shape and in variants) throughout Antonín Dvořák's Requiem, reading it as a representation as a musical "other" that in this context may stand for death and an - ultimately unsuccessful - attempt to integrate it musically into normal proceedings.
The Role of National Opera Houses in the 20th and 21st Centuries, Studia musicologica Labacensia 3, 2019
This essay offers a comparison of the provision of opera in Ireland (particularly in Dublin) in t... more This essay offers a comparison of the provision of opera in Ireland (particularly in Dublin) in the early twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, with a special focus on structural issues such as the number of opera companies, the size of venues or the degree of state support. It shows that despite a recent increase in the number of productions and performances there still were more performances at least in Dublin (although probably not elsewhere in the country) a century ago. There is a recently designated “National Opera House” in a small town in the Irish South-East which remains unused for most of the year while there is also a recently formed “Irish National Opera” company which does not have a home venue. In 2017/18 opera productions in Ireland were run by sixteen different national and international companies, ranging from full-scale productions of canonic and (surprisingly many) non-canonic works to concert performances and smaller productions with reduced orchestras. Long-term strategic planning is very difficult due to the Irish Arts Council’s funding strategy. However, about three new operas per year are currently funded, commissioned and premiered in Ireland.
Who telleth a tale of unspeaking death? Dublin Death Studies 2, ed. Wolfgang Marx, 2017
This essay analyses the "Berliner Requiem", a "secular cantata" by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht ... more This essay analyses the "Berliner Requiem", a "secular cantata" by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht premiered in 1929, as an engagement with what Achille Mbembe has described as "necropolitics", also taking into account earlier concepts developed by Elias Canetti and Herbert Marcuse. Written in commemoration of the First World War, the piece addresses death (certainly death in war) as something that is unnecessary and could - indeed should - be prevented.
György Ligeti's Cultural Identities, eds Amy Bauer, Márton Kerékfy (Routledge: New York, London, 2017)., 2017
This essay looks at aspects of Ligeti's musical style in the light of his experiences during the ... more This essay looks at aspects of Ligeti's musical style in the light of his experiences during the holocaust and under communist rule in post-war Hungary. Based on Jeffrey C. Alexander's concept of cultural trauma and Maria Cizmic's study of trauma expressed in the music of other Eastern-European composers, elements such as micropolyphony, the treatment of text or the play with tuning systems, but also the use of allusions or of the lament are linked to fragmentation, collage, irony, non-teleological structuring and other strategies described by Cizmic as related to musico-artistic responses to traumatic experiences.
Studia Musicologica, 2016
This essay identifies three reasons that help explain why György Ligeti was highly active as a sp... more This essay identifies three reasons that help explain why György Ligeti was highly active as a speaker and author of texts about music throughout his career. They thereby replenished his income (particularly before 1973), asserted his auctorial authority vis-à-vis musicological interpretations and – at least indirectly – secured a better “share of the market” for his own music by being present in the public eye. This essay also discusses the reliability of Ligeti’s assertions, warning against an over-reliance on composers’ views on the part of musicologists.
In 'Who telleth a Tale of Unspeaking Death? Dublin Death Studies 2', ed. Wolfgang Marx (Dublin: C... more In 'Who telleth a Tale of Unspeaking Death? Dublin Death Studies 2', ed. Wolfgang Marx (Dublin: Carysfort Press, 2017), 1-6.
Death and the Irish. A Miscellany
(Forthcoming - October 2016) Raymond Deane's "Seachanges (with Danse Macabre)", part of his "Maca... more (Forthcoming - October 2016)
Raymond Deane's "Seachanges (with Danse Macabre)", part of his "Macabre Trilogy", refers to death in several different ways. This brief essay outlines how the work's title, motivic and structural elements and its instrumentation support this notion before linking it to the state of Irish art music in general.
Among the other over seventy topics treated in this anthology are the following: the Galway girl who was buried with her horse in the fifth or sixth century; the account of the curious death of a little-known Irish saint in medieval Norway; the Black Death in Kilkenny; death and sexual transgression in medieval Ireland; grisly deaths from the Irish annals; the funerary monuments of clerical wives in early modern Ireland; the forgotten Connacht massacre of 1647; a seventeenth-century Belfast ghost story; an Irish story of cannibalism on the high seas; the records of an Offaly coroner during the Great Famine; the Derry ghost who imparted information on the missing Franklin expedition in the Arctic in 1849; Jewish burial customs in nineteenth-century Ireland; death and Irish freemasonry; the Irishman whose body was shipped back to Ireland from Italy in an upright piano; death in Irish folklore; the history of children’s burial grounds in Ireland; the ritual of tobacco use at Irish wakes; memorial cards and Irish funerary culture; death in Irish sermons; funeral rites among the Irish Travelling community; death and dying in contemporary Irish pagan belief; the link between commemoration of the dead and humour; deathbed visions; attitudes towards death and dying in modern Ireland, including the impact of social media on the culture of commemorating the dead.
Hanne Darboven. Enlightenment - Time Histories. A Retrospective, Dec 2015
In this essay I discuss my collaboration with the German conceptual artist Hanne Darboven which l... more In this essay I discuss my collaboration with the German conceptual artist Hanne Darboven which lasted from 2002 until her death in 2009. Darboven converted her visual artworks into a self-devised musical notation which required arrangement by a collaborator to allow for them to be performed by musicians. I discuss the ways in which I arranged some of those works as well as what working with Darboven was like.
Music and Death. Funeral Music, Memory and Re-Evaluating Life, 2023
Music gives specific meanings to our lives, but also to how we experience death; it forms a centr... more Music gives specific meanings to our lives, but also to how we experience death; it forms a central part of death rituals, consoles survivors, and celebrates the deceased.
"Music & Death" investigates different musical engagements with death. Its eleven essays examine a broad range of genres, styles and periods of Western music from the Middle Ages until the present day. This volume brings a variety of methodological approaches to bear on a broad, but non-exhaustive, range of music. These include musical rituals and intercessions on behalf of the departed. Chapters also focus on musicians' reactions to death, their ways of engaging with grief, anger and acceptance, and the public's reaction to the death of musicians.
The genres covered include requiem settings, operas and ballets, arts songs, songs by Leonard Cohen and the B-52s, and instrumental music. There are also broader reflections regarding the psychological links between creative musical practice and the overcoming of grief, music's central role in shaping a specific lifestyle (of psychobillies) and the supposed universalism of Western art music (as exemplified by Brahms).
The volume adds many new facets to the area of death studies, highlighting different aspects of "musical thanatology". It will appeal to those interested in the intersections between western music and theology, as well as scholars of anthropology and cultural studies.
CONTRIBUTORS: Matt BaileyShea, Alexandra Buckle, Peter Edwards, Richard Elliott, Nicole Grimes, Mieko Kanno, Kimberly Kattari, Wolfgang Marx, Fred E. Maus, Jillian C. Rogers, UtaSailer and Miriam Wendling.
I Don’t Belong Anywhere: György Ligeti at 100, 2022
2023 marks the centenary of Ligeti’s birth, an appropriate moment to take stock of the relevance ... more 2023 marks the centenary of Ligeti’s birth, an appropriate moment to take stock of the relevance this composer has in the contemporary world, to assess where he “belongs” today and how our views of his œuvre and our understanding of his position in musical and cultural history have evolved. What do Ligeti and his music have to say to us in our post-postmodernist age? Why do his works still fascinate us so much? This volume (edited by Wolfgang Marx) offers new readings of core compositions such as «Aventures», «Lontano», the «Hölderlin Fantasies», «Galamb borong» and the Violin Concerto. It also reassesses the context and reception of Ligeti’s works, including the influence of Romanian music (not least in his childhood), musical life in Hungary between 1945 and 1956, the ways in which his thinking was influenced by his experience of different soundscapes, yet also the surprisingly widespread use of his music in film and TV (beyond Kubrick as the usual suspect). Finally it presents new sources discovered or made available only recently: letters exchanged between Ligeti and Aliute Mecys in 1972, the correspondence between the composer and his publisher Schott, and an extended BBC interview from 1997.
Death in History, Culture, and Society
Death in History, Culture, and Society is a new, peer-reviewed interdisciplinary series of monogr... more Death in History, Culture, and Society is a new, peer-reviewed interdisciplinary series of monographs and edited volumes. It is dedicated to social and cultural engagements with death across the globe. This includes synchronous studies of death during a specific period within a culture and studies with a cross-cultural approach; diachronous studies of death-related issues within a region, genre or culture; explorations of new death-related concepts and methodologies; or specific death-related inquiries. The focus may lie on concepts and definitions of death and dying; death rituals, both sacred and secular; social or cultural responses to death; issues of memory and identity related to death and loss; as well as individual, social or political strategies of integrating death and the dead into life.
The series will be launched in 2022. Wolfgang Marx and Heather Sparling, the general editors, are now inviting ideas for monographs and edited volumes.
Die Musikforschung 77/2, 164-169., 2024
Review article (in German) of Philip Ewell, “On Music Theory and Making Music More Welcoming for... more Review article (in German) of Philip Ewell, “On Music Theory and Making Music More Welcoming for Everyone”; Dylan Robinson, “Hungry Listening”; and “Voices for Change in the Classical Music Profession” (eds A. Bull, C. Scharff and L. Nooshin).
Journal of the Society for Musicology in Ireland, 2019
Die Tonkunst, 2017
Matthias Henke, Ricarda Vidal (eds), [Ton]spurensuche - Ernst Bloch und die Music (Siegen: univer... more Matthias Henke, Ricarda Vidal (eds), [Ton]spurensuche - Ernst Bloch und die Music (Siegen: universi - Universitätsverlag Siegen, 2016).
Christopher Partridge, Mortality and Music: Popular Music and the Awareness of Death (London, 201... more Christopher Partridge, Mortality and Music: Popular Music and the Awareness of Death (London, 2015), in Mortality. Promoting the Interdisciplinary Study of Death and Dying (2017)
Review of Daniel Martin Feige, Philosophie des Jazz (Berlin, 2014), in European Journal of Musico... more Review of Daniel Martin Feige, Philosophie des Jazz (Berlin, 2014), in European Journal of Musicology 15/1 (2016), 135-142.
Review of Benjamin Dwyer, Different Voices: Irish Music and Music in Ireland (Hofheim: Wolke, 201... more Review of Benjamin Dwyer, Different Voices: Irish Music and Music in Ireland (Hofheim: Wolke, 2014), in Musik und Ästhetik 19, Heft 75 (Juli 2015), 114-117.
The seven essays published in this volume are based on contributions to a one-day colloquium orga... more The seven essays published in this volume are based on contributions to a one-day colloquium organised at the Humboldt-
The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland, eds Barra Boydell & Harry White (Dublin: UCD Press, 2013);... more The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland, eds Barra Boydell & Harry White (Dublin: UCD Press, 2013); ‘Callino Quartet’ (vol. 1, 151), ‘Cross-Border Orchestra of Ireland’ (vol. 1, 266), ‘Grúpat’ (vol. 1, 449), ‘Music Network’ (vol. 2, 707), ‘Opera Theatre Company’ (vol. 2, 790-1), ‘RTÉ Concert Orchestra’ (vol. 2, 904-5), ‘University College Dublin’ (vol. 2, 1023-4).
Given what is currently happening in the world I feel that academics have a special responsibilit... more Given what is currently happening in the world I feel that academics have a special responsibility to tackle post-truth, bullshitting and alternative facts (not least because as a class we may be partly responsible for their emergence). For that reason I am devising a new general elective module entitled "Post-Truth, Politics and Music - Facts and Emotion in a Globalised World" which is open to students of all subjects. I would love to get some feedback on its structure and the selection of examples and thank you in advance for your comments!
This series of five webinars in September and October 2021 has discussed the impact of the post-t... more This series of five webinars in September and October 2021 has discussed the impact of the post-truth mentality on music and musicology through practical examples and epistemological considerations (such as the discourses on gender and race, misunderstandings of critical and postmodern thinking, or what might be called the “moral turn” in the humanities and social sciences). We seek to present heuristics for the “post-post-truth era” and will explore issues such as how increases in societal polarization, individual reliance on faith, emotion, and “gut,” and the subversion of common discourse in the public sphere (particularly through social media) find certain equivalents in both musicological research and teaching. All events will be streamed live and will include ample opportunity for audience participation.
European Journal of Musicology 21/1 (2022), 64-77, 2024
This essay investigates what I regard as the two main challenges for historical musicology today:... more This essay investigates what I regard as the two main challenges for historical musicology today: where it might be heading in the age of post-critical musicology and how it should react to the age of post-truth whose perceptual and moral relativism paired with its a priori rejection of expertise represents a fundamental challenge to all academic pursuits – a challenge so serious that it needs to be addressed by musicology as much as by all other disciplines in the humanities, social sciences and sciences. Juxtaposing critical musicology and what many call “the music itself” I will undertake this discussion following the structure of the most dialectical of all musical forms, the sonata form – albeit with the proviso that the resulting synthesis cannot consist of the tonic asserting its primacy at the expense of the dominant; there will have to be a more equitable outcome.