Signification in atonal, amotivic music? Extending the properties of actoriality in Ligeti's second string quartet
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Bertha Spies
Bertha Spies is Professor Extraordinary at the University of Pretoria 〈spies.bertha@gmail.com〉. Her research interests is in music theory. Her publications include “ ‘Music is life’ – The influence of transcendentalist philosophy on Ives'sConcord Sonata ” (with W. Weyer, 2007); “Renewal of education in South Africa: The problem of implementation” (2011); “Thematic physiognomy creates access to three divergent twentieth-century compositions” (2011); and “Saartjie” (2014).
Abstract
In the absence of melodic and motivic structures, how does signification function in atonal music? By extending the properties of actoriality, this article focuses on the goal-directedness of kinetic energy as an independent property of actoriality. The demonstration focuses on various modalities of goal-directed kinetic energy in meaningful segments of György Ligeti's second string quartet (1968) in order to promote an understanding of the overall design. Because time and space are integrated in the various modalities of atonal musical processes, a conceptual framework for making sense of signification in Ligeti's string quartet as a whole becomes possible.
About the author
Bertha Spies is Professor Extraordinary at the University of Pretoria 〈spies.bertha@gmail.com〉. Her research interests is in music theory. Her publications include “ ‘Music is life’ – The influence of transcendentalist philosophy on Ives's Concord Sonata” (with W. Weyer, 2007); “Renewal of education in South Africa: The problem of implementation” (2011); “Thematic physiognomy creates access to three divergent twentieth-century compositions” (2011); and “Saartjie” (2014).
©2014 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Munich/Boston
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Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Semiotic degeneracy of social life: Prolegomenon to a human science of semiosis
- Heterosemiosis: Mixing sign systems in graphic narrative texts
- Do speakers really unconsciously and imagistically gesture about what is important when they are telling a story?
- On the institutional aspect of institutionalized and institutionalizing semiotics
- At the intersection of text and talk: On the reproduction and transformation of language in the multi-lingual evaluation of multi-lingual texts
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