Papers by Frank Hentschel
This article explores the musical means composers in the nineteenth century used to evoke the unc... more This article explores the musical means composers in the nineteenth century used to evoke the uncanny (das Unheimliche). While most existing attempts to determine these means rely on an author's subjective opinion with regard to particular evocations of the uncanny, this article draws exclusively on contemporary sources. Drawn from the RIPM database, thirteen examples have been selected-following Ernst Jentsch's notion of the uncanny and based on a clearly defined set of selection criteria-from works by Webern, Loewe, Berlioz, Schumann, Wagner, Boito, and Ambroise Thomas. Compositional devices that recur in several of the works discussed prove to be of central importance. The article asks, finally, how these techniques generate the effect of the uncanny.
scheint die Auffassung geherrscht zu haben, die sogenannte E-oder Kunstmusik, als deren Gipfel di... more scheint die Auffassung geherrscht zu haben, die sogenannte E-oder Kunstmusik, als deren Gipfel die Neue Musik angesehen wurde, sei analytisch, formal und immanent musikhistorisch zu betrachten, während für die sogenannte U-oder Popmusik zunächst auf soziologische Fragestellungen und Methoden zurückzugreifen sei. Hinter dieser Auffassung dürfte eine Ideologie musikalischer Autonomie gestanden haben, die man nicht so sehr voraussetzen als vielmehr selbst kritisch historisch und soziologisch befragen sollte. Da jede Musik und jedes ästhetische Urteil notwendig in ein komplexes Geflecht kultureller, historischer, sozialer Zusammenhänge eingebunden ist, erschiene es einem unvoreingenommenen Betrachter wohl ohnehin unzweifelhaft, dass Musik, einschließlich ihrer Rezeption, grundsätzlich sowohl einer ästhetischen als auch einer historischsoziologischen Untersuchung unterzogen werden kann und sollte. Das Soziotop der Neuen Musik ist indes verschachtelt, die Forschungssituation dürftig. Deshalb besteht das Ziel der folgenden Überlegungen lediglich darin, Fragen aufzuwerfen, Methoden zu diskutieren und Probleme anzusprechen. 1. Definition und Werturteil Es ist klar, dass am Anfang einer Untersuchung des Soziotops Neuer Musik die Frage stehen muss, was diese überhaupt sei. Nun gibt es Neue Musik mit großem N, neue Musik mit kleinem n; und es gibt «neue elektronische Musik», die ihre Wurzeln vielfach eher in der Popmusik hat. 2 Außerdem sehen die Sprachregelungen mancher Festivals Alternativen vor wie aktuelle Musik (MaerzMusik), zeitgenössische Musik (Dresdner Tage für zeitgenössische Musik) oder zeitgemäße Musik (Bludenzer Tage zeitgemäßer Musik). Während der Begriff 1 Der gegenwärtige Aufsatz begreift sich als eine Art Ausblick, der aus zwei kürzlich abgeschlossenen Studien hervorgegangen ist. Sie müssen daher häufiger zitiert werden:
Augustinus-Lexikon online, Jun 25, 2019
Revue De Musicologie, 1999
... Frank Hentschel (Jg. 1968) studierte Musik-wissenschaft und Philosophie in Deutschland (Köln)... more ... Frank Hentschel (Jg. 1968) studierte Musik-wissenschaft und Philosophie in Deutschland (Köln) und England (London). ... Page 9. MUSIK - UND DIE GESCHICHTE DER PHILOSOPHIE UND NATURWISSENSCHAFTEN IM MI'ITELALTER "Thi s One DQW3-EAQ-H56N Page 10. ...
Böhlau Verlag eBooks, Jul 10, 2023
In 1888, Max Bruch's aunt Augusta Leo, who was living in Berlin at the time, wrote the following ... more In 1888, Max Bruch's aunt Augusta Leo, who was living in Berlin at the time, wrote the following to Max and Clara Bruch: By the way, the philharmonic hall has been renovated, it is very beautiful, with a large organ, and large stage situated on the appropriate wall. It also sounds good-only, once again, the size of the room is not really appropriate for the fortissimo-it doesn't really "pack a punch" […]. 1 Loudness mattered. Whether the loud passages were sufficiently punchy in a concert hall was a central criterion for Bruch's aunt. She was certainly not alone in her preference as other contemporary accounts show, even early ones such as Johann Reichardt who complained about a planned performance of some of his choral work: You know that I only work with large masses in my choral works and that these pieces are not effective and it's almost impossible to grasp the idea of the work with too few singers-it's like trying to impress upon someone the grandeur of the colonnade in St. Peter's Square in Rome at night using a small hand-held lantern. 2 However, this was not a simple matter of personal preference; the quantity of loud music we encounter in the long 19 th century clearly lends credence to the view that loudness was an essential feature of the music. Hector Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique, his Requiem, or Giuseppe Verdi's Requiem, and Richard Wagner's operas, Anton Bruckner's and Gustav Mahler's Symphonies, Franz Liszt's Symphonic Poems, Antonin Dvořak's Symphony From the New World or his Cello Concerto, mass scenes in Grand Operas by Giacomo Meyerbeer are just a few examples that illustrate the central role of loudness. Moreover, Stefan Weinzierl has * Earlier versions of this article was presented at conferences in Göttingen and Crete as well as at the Universities of Göttingen, Bayreuth, Graz, and Utrecht. I owe thanks to Andreas Domann, Linus Eusterbrock, Emmanuelle de Freitas, and Wiebke Rademacher for commenting on various drafts. 1 MBA, Künstlerbriefe Band 7 (Allg. Correspondenz 1888. II. Juli-Decbr), 363-368, here 367. Many thanks to Jonas Löffler for drawing my attention to this document. 2 Reichardt, Vertraute Briefe, 164; for further evidence see Hentschel, "Expressive Qualität," 162sq. and 174. 9 Together with a colleague in computer science, we are working on such a database; see Barzen et al., "The Vision for MUSE4Music." 10 See Juslin and Sloboda, Music and Emotion, for an overview. 11 A major study that came from that trend is Melanie Wald-Fuhrmann's substantial work on melancholy around 1800 (Wald-Fuhrmann, Ein Mittel wider sich selbst); more recently, also see Ickstadt, Aspekte der Melancholie. 12 Schellenberg and Scheve, "Emotional Cues in American Popular Music." 13 Horn and Huron, "On the Changing Use." 14 See, for example, Floros, Hören und Verstehen. 15 See for an overview Mirka, The Oxford Handbook. 16 Ibid., 2.
Archiv Fur Musikwissenschaft, Dec 31, 2022
Regarding the ability to describe tone qualities in music, Latin had a severe dearth of available... more Regarding the ability to describe tone qualities in music, Latin had a severe dearth of available terms. Authors in the Latin Middle Ages had to therefore make do with numerous cross-modal descriptors of musical qualities. The article uses the database Thesaurus musicarum Latinarum for an overview of these descriptors, whereby it arranges the terms, pursuant to their cross-modal usage, in accordance with the modalities of sensory perception from which each originated. In this context, the routinely cross-modally-interpreted terms suavis and dulcis are also submitted to a critical review.
In 1974, Richard Alewyn argued that the pleasure of fear, especially represented by uncanny subje... more In 1974, Richard Alewyn argued that the pleasure of fear, especially represented by uncanny subjects, be an aesthetical post-enlightenment phenomenon. To evaluate this thesis it is necessary to investigate pre-enlightenment artefacts. The present article, therefore, focuses on music theatre from the 17th century searching for clues to the pleasure of fear and the Uncanny in such works. Investigating examples from the Intermedio La Pellegrina, Cavalieri’s Rappresentaztone di Anima, et di Corpo, Monterverdi’s Ballo delle Ingrate, Lully’s Béllerophon and Alceste, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, and Charpentiers Medée as well as contemporaneous descriptions of the performances, the article concludes that pre-enlightenment art did imply the pleasure of fear and possibly the Uncanny. However, in contrast to post-enlightenment art, three observations could be made: 1) usually, the horrible agents in 17th-century music theatre does not occur of its own accord but is intentionally being evoked by human agents; 2) the Horrible is usually not the subject as such but comes into play as part of a love drama or the like; 3) 17th-century music theatre does not thematize the disturbance of a natural order; rather, the monsters just belong to the fictional reality.
Archiv Fur Musikwissenschaft, 2016
Archiv Fur Musikwissenschaft, 2001
Leo Treitler: ,Just as our conception of the Renaissance as a historical epoch follows, and conti... more Leo Treitler: ,Just as our conception of the Renaissance as a historical epoch follows, and continues to reinforce, the self-image of Renaissance individuals, so our continued designation of the second half of the eighteenth century as the era of Classicism rests ultimately upon, and preserves, ideals that were given expression at the. time" (Music and the Historical Imagination, Cambridge/MA 1989, S. 86f.).
Plainsong & Medieval Music, Mar 18, 2011
The title of this article might be provocative for two reasons. First, how can one possibly talk ... more The title of this article might be provocative for two reasons. First, how can one possibly talk about 'aesthetics' in the Middle Ages, since there was no such thing (as has often been remarked). Surely, the answer depends on the definition of the term 'aesthetics'. In the Middle Ages aesthetics did not exist as a discipline. Also, most discussions of beauty (pulchritudo) were placed in metaphysical contexts that cannot be interpreted with regard to artneither in the modern sense nor in the medieval sense of ars. 1 In order to give this non-aesthetical discipline a name, some people use the word 'kallistics', a term already mentioned by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. 2 This, however, does not mean that medieval authors did not ask questions such as 'Which consonance sounds well?' or 'Does a certain device contribute to towards music. 6 If one reconstructs the original meanings behind treatises of music theory it becomes intelligible that those pieces of evidence from other sources and disciplines or from in-between the lines must indeed be considered aesthetical statements in their own right. I. Augustine On first sight, one would probably not expect anyone to choose Augustine (354-430) out of all the medieval authors on music theory in order to point out the sensuous aspect of music theory. Some of the apparently most typical judgments stem from Augustineconfirming those prejudices just mentioned. Augustine disapproved of sensual qualities in music in two respects: firstly in the direct aesthetical sense that the Beautiful pleases through number, and secondly in the moral sense that one has to stay away from sensuous pleasure. Augustine could not be clearer, it seems. The formulation 'the Beautiful pleases through number', in fact, is a literal translation from his De musica: 'pulchra numero placent'. 7 As to the moral aspect, Augustine emphatically asked: 'What, then, is easy? To love colours, voices and cake, roses and soft bodies?' 8 Here, Augustine compares the love of God with the sensuous love of corporeal things. I will deal with both statements separately.
De Gruyter eBooks, Sep 12, 2016
Music Perception, Dec 1, 2022
The perception and experience of emotions in response to music listening are subject of a growing... more The perception and experience of emotions in response to music listening are subject of a growing body of empirical research across the humanities and social sciences. While we are now able to investigate music perception in different parts of the world, insights into historical music perception remain elusive, mainly because the direct interrogation of music listeners of the past is no longer possible. Here, we present an approach to the retroactive exploration of historical music perception using semantic network analysis of historical text documents. To illustrate this approach, we analyzed written accounts of 19th-century perception of music that is described as “uncanny” (unheimlich). The high centrality values of “eerie” (gespenstisch) indicate that music termed as such should be highly similar to “uncanny” (unheimlich) music. We thus also analyzed written accounts of 19th-century perception of music described as “eerie” (gespenstisch). Using semantic network analyses on other expressive qualities as well as compositional features, we were then able to highlight in which way “uncanny” (unheimlich) and “eerie” (gespenstisch) music are similar and how they might be distinguished. Semantic network analysis may thus be a valuable tool in describing what compositional features were associated with particular expressive qualities by listeners of the past.
the page numbers of the German version are to be found in square brackets.] * I would like to tha... more the page numbers of the German version are to be found in square brackets.] * I would like to thank Andreas Domann, René Michaelsen and Wiebke Rademacher for their insightful comments that made an invaluable contribution to this article. 1 I don't want to suggest that this aspect has never been examined before. Especially in studies of the category of the sublime, which was so important in 18 th -century music, loudness has been thematized several times in different studies. At a bare minimum, the following studies should be mentioned: Claudia L.
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Papers by Frank Hentschel
Der Schwerpunkt liegt auf dem Zeitraum zwischen 1970 und 2000. Dabei verknüpft die Arbeit die Geschichte des Festivals mit der Problematisierung historiografischer Methoden. Ästhetische, soziale, biografische und kompositorische Elemente werden herausgearbeitet, die die „neue Musik“ nicht so sehr als Resultat musikgeschichtlicher Entwicklungen, sondern als soziales und kulturpraktisches Konstrukt erscheinen lassen.
Ausgangspunkt ist die Analyse von Wertungsstrategien, die der Ordnung von Konsonanzen zugrunde liegen. Da die mittelalterliche musica theorica als mathematische Wissenschaft, also als philosophische Disziplin galt, führen die Darstellungen vielfach in die Geschichte der Philosophie und Wissenschaften.
Containing articles by specialists in medieval music and philosophy, this volume highlights aspects of the emergence and theory of knowledge, and the appearance of more aesthetic conceptions of music.