Polyphonie als Nymphomanie

Using Bach's »Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ« in NYMPHOMANIAC as an example and drawing on metaphor theory, the paper shows that pre-existing music in film comprises simultaneously a cinematic recontextualization of music and its musical editing for the film. Following this, the idea of an »inexistent pre-existence« is presented as a corrective antithesis to the conventional designations of this phenomenon such as »pre-composed music«, »pre-existing music« or »musical quotations«. The concept of »inexistent pre-existence« intends to correct the approach whereby pre-existing film music is reduced to its extra-filmic text (musical scores or extant musical records). Instead, the paper argues for understanding and focusing on the differences between textual variants as a productive music-analytical challenge.