The Concept of Intersemiotic Translation and its Application to the Analysis of a Musical Work (original) (raw)

2021, Musical Analysis. Historia - Theoria - Praxis

The border between musicology and translation studies still remains an underexplored research area. As the Turkish-British researcher Şebnem Susam-Sarajeva points out, this might be caused, on one hand, by the limited competencies of most translators in the field of music. Musicologists, in turn, are still very carefully entering an unknown area, so far exclusive to linguists, and therefore rarely reach out for research tools rooted in the field of translation theory. Meanwhile, the use of these tools can prove to be extremely valuable support in research into a musical work. The experience of the author of this article with the topic so far has led to the formulation of the concept of musical translation, defined as a rendition of the work in its entirety, which involves necessary changes and transformations resulting from the time, place and purpose of the new version. It is a category which includes phenomena such as transcription, arrangement, development or cover. In a translator’s words, this would be the so-called intrasystemic translation, taking place only within the system of musical signs. A separate category is called intersystemic (intersemiotic) translation, occurring between different sign systems, for example between music and words or between music and an image. This phenom- enon is sometimes equated with the concept of ekphrasis. The point of departure for Umberto Eco’s concept of translation is the assumption that each translation is also an interpretation. Therefore, any exegesis of musical phenomena, in particular the verbalisation of musical meanings, bears the features of translation. The article discusses the significance of the concept of intersemiotic translation for the analysis and interpretation of a musical work on the examples of verbal interpretations of selected Preludes of Fryderyk Chopin.