{"title":"Hearing the Musical Resonances of Catastrophe","authors":"Abby Anderton, Martha Sprigge","doi":"10.1017/S1478572222000068","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1478572222000068","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This collection of articles proposes a theoretical model for understanding and analysing the persistence of music making as a response to urban catastrophe. In the Introduction, the authors present an overview of recent humanistic literature on ruin aesthetics, positioning music as a vital yet overlooked dimension of aesthetic responses to disaster. The forum delves into the moral and ethical complexities of performing in ruins from second-century Jerusalem to contemporary Haiti. By tracing the sound of music in and about ruins, this forum offers a timely reflection on the nature of post-catastrophic music making, proposing new directions for analysing the relationships between music, traumatic memory, and spaces of performance.","PeriodicalId":43259,"journal":{"name":"Twentieth-Century Music","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48212968","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Gascia Ouzounian, Stereophonica: Sound and Space in Science, Technology, and the Arts (Cambridge and London: MIT Press, 2020), ISBN: 978-0-262-04478-3 (hb).","authors":"Richard H. Brown","doi":"10.1017/S1478572222000056","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1478572222000056","url":null,"abstract":"Sound Studies as a discipline is replete with theories on the relationship between sound and space, and while many point to certain key historical anecdotes to ground far-reaching theories on project-specific examples, few have attempted a historical account of acoustic and auditory spatiality with such specificity and coherence as Gascia Ouzounian. Stereophonica contributes to a growing field of research on this intersection, traversing examples from the nineteenth century to the present day. Using the key concepts of propagation, reflection, and projection, Ouzounian begins with the origins of the ‘binaural listener’. This category of scientific listener explored auditory space through amyriad of technical innovations in stereophonic audition and projection from medical tools such as the stethoscope to military technologies for sound detection. Stereophonica is roughly divided into two parts: the first examining key intersections between technological innovation and sound theory, and the second surveying a number of artistic practices from mediated broadcast to recent sound art and site-specific installation works, weaving what the author describes as ‘the improbable path from studies of auditory space perception in the nineteenth century to the work of contemporary artists who reveal and reorient urban spaces through sound’ (14). As is necessary for a brief survey with such a wide historical lens, Ouzounian picks key historical episodes that transformed the understanding of sound and space, spanning engineering, warfare, theatre, industry, and urban design. Ending with contemporary uses of this established toolkit of theories, Ouzounian positions the modernist attempt to document, map, plan, and rationalize sound against the social, political, and cultural meanings that the title of the study evokes. As was often the central conflict in modernist rationalization of auditory space, the study and application of sound’s effects could never be removed from the discursive social and political understandings of space – one could argue that the modernist attempt to do so in fact created ground for oppositional studies in contemporary practice. In the first half of Stereophonica, Ouzounian walks us through a cabinet of nineteenthand early twentieth-century curiosities in sound audition and reproduction, beginning with binaural listening devices such as the differential stethoscope and aural analogues andmoving on to the stereoscope such as Anton Steinhauser’s Homophone (1879) and Silvanus P. Thompson’s Pseudophone (1879), devices that aided in theorizing binaural perception.","PeriodicalId":43259,"journal":{"name":"Twentieth-Century Music","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47452180","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Damage and Renewal at the Württembergische Staatstheater, Stuttgart","authors":"Emily Richmond Pollock","doi":"10.1017/S1478572222000093","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1478572222000093","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The dual theatre complex of the Württembergische Staatstheater in Stuttgart sustained serious damage during the Second World War. While the larger theatre was eventually able to be repaired, the smaller theatre was destroyed, leading to a multi-phased and controversial process to determine how best to replace it. Many of Stuttgart's citizens publicly pleaded that the smaller theatre should be reconstructed according to its original design, in order to restore its historical beauty and its integrity with the complex. The company's Intendant and numerous architects, however, took a more modern approach that manifested in a variety of proposed designs, including that by Hans Volkart, which opened in 1962. Countering the binary represented by ‘faithful reconstruction’ on one end (Vienna, Munich) and by completely modern designs on the other (West Berlin, Cologne), the case of Stuttgart perhaps serves as a better metaphor for the compromises of continuity and change in post-war culture.","PeriodicalId":43259,"journal":{"name":"Twentieth-Century Music","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43969325","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Rubbled Cities – Sounds and Silence: A Travelogue","authors":"Ruth Hacohen","doi":"10.1017/s1478572222000123","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1478572222000123","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract A travelogue of an Israeli musicologist, descendant of German Jewish émigrés, her real and imaginary sonic journey roams between ruins and rubble in Germany and Israel/Palestine. She takes ruins as iconic, allegoric, and reverberating; partially resisting the ravages of time, enshrining sounds and memory. She deems rubble as formless, plain, and voiceless, devoid of identity, transient, and forgetful. The destruction of Jerusalem in 70 ce by the Romans is her starting point, and the currently occupied East Jerusalem by Israeli armed forces is where she ends. The imaginary soundscapes she unfolds resonates forlorn heavenly voices, Nazi youth's ditties, Israeli pop songs, operatic voices, and redemptive and subversive German and Israeli oratorios.","PeriodicalId":43259,"journal":{"name":"Twentieth-Century Music","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45149218","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Hearing Global Britishness on the BBC's Commonwealth of Song (1953–1961)","authors":"T. Nelson","doi":"10.1017/S1478572222000147","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1478572222000147","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Part of the United Kingdom's national reconstruction following the Second World War was reforming its self-image as a global power in light of imperial decline. This recasting took place across political and cultural spheres and emphasized the Commonwealth, idealized as a friendly collection of current and former colonies linked by British culture. In this article, I demonstrate how music broadcasting functioned as a site of diplomacy, using white, middle-class taste for light entertainment to reinforce British values at the Empire's twilight. I focus on musical depictions of the Commonwealth on the BBC radio programme Commonwealth of Song. Using archival records, I reconstruct debates concerning Commonwealth representation and its importance to British citizens. I argue that Commonwealth of Song was a site of testing and reformulating new sonic constructions of globally minded ‘Britishness’ in the 1950s, yet conflicting messaging about what musics and people should represent the Commonwealth led to a lukewarm reception.","PeriodicalId":43259,"journal":{"name":"Twentieth-Century Music","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44636365","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Singing on Solid Ground: Music Education in Post-Earthquake Haiti","authors":"Lauren Eldridge Stewart","doi":"10.1017/s147857222200007x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s147857222200007x","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The sonic aftershocks of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti continue to reverberate throughout the cultural landscape, particularly within the relatively small but long-standing mizik klasik community. In this article, I analyse the sometimes divergent performances of a composition that commemorates that tragedy. Haitian-American composer Sydney Guillaume wrote ‘N'ap Debat’ (‘We're Hangin’ On’) from Los Angeles shortly after the earthquake. One performance of this work takes place far from the site of ruin, voiced by distant observers. The other performance happens in Haiti, sung by its survivors. Both performances transform rubble into ruin.","PeriodicalId":43259,"journal":{"name":"Twentieth-Century Music","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45513122","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Destroying the Imagined City","authors":"Ariana Phillips-Hutton","doi":"10.1017/S1478572222000111","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1478572222000111","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The transformation of rubble into aestheticized ruins turns on the relation of aesthetics, politics, and power alongside questions of memory, imagination, and embodiment. Working outward from this suggestive confluence, I investigate contemporary practices of commemorative composition that resituate elements of the historical archive, and so turn sonic rubble into ruin. Using Mary Kouyoumdjian's 2014 composition Bombs of Beirut as an example, I consider how the composer uses witness testimony and archival recordings of wartime sounds from the Lebanese Civil War (1975–90) to first construct, and then destroy, a version of the city of Beirut. In so doing, she engages in what Marianne Hirsch would call a ‘postmemorial act’ that reconfigures the relationships between physical, mental, and social spaces. The resulting palimpsest of meanings not only offers an important contemplative space for approaching the past but also suggests intriguing futures for the musical art of the ruin.","PeriodicalId":43259,"journal":{"name":"Twentieth-Century Music","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46289250","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Whiplash, Buddy Rich, and Visual Virtuosity in Drum Kit Performance","authors":"Jonathan Godsall","doi":"10.1017/S1478572221000268","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1478572221000268","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The 2014 film Whiplash depicts successful jazz drumming as an athletic exhibition of speed and endurance, in a manner that reflects its protagonist's idolization of Buddy Rich (1917–87). The crowd-pleasing virtuosity of Rich and Whiplash has drawn critics’ ire, but this article interrogates the ideas of musical authenticity that underpin their complaints, and offers a more productive analysis of the film's drum kit performances and their inspiration, informed by a range of jazz, film, and performance scholarship. Specific attention is drawn to the performances’ visual attractions. Whiplash's fast editing style and shots of exertion – grimacing, sweat, blood – give non-expert viewers a sense of drumming's physical and mental demands, and much the same is true of Rich's exaggerated movements and expressions, whether seen live or (as is commonly the case) amplified by a screen's mediation.","PeriodicalId":43259,"journal":{"name":"Twentieth-Century Music","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42231027","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}