"Feminine Endings": On the Poetics of Endings in the "New Musicology" Cover Image

"Ženski završeci": O poetikama završavanja u "New Musicology"
"Feminine Endings": On the Poetics of Endings in the "New Musicology"

Author(s): Dalibor Davidović
Subject(s): Cultural Essay, Political Essay, Societal Essay
Published by: Institut za etnologiju i folkloristiku
Keywords: New musicology; Susan McClary; musicology; New historicism

Summary/Abstract: In this article some aspects of the "New musicology" are discussed, quoting the examples of the works by musicologist Susan McClary. For this purpose, the "New musicology" is viewed as a systematic as well as a cultural and historical phenomenon. Some further aspects of the "New musicology" are also discussed, such as aporias of the epistemological constructivism, aporias of the anthropocentric determination of music, the construction of the "traditional" musicology and the resistance towards it, antiprofessionalism, the critique of the "aesthetic ideology", characteristic features of the construction of the "history" of music, the understanding of musicological "politics" etc. The aporias of those aspects and the ways in which the "New musicology" attempts to solve them are pointed to. On the other hand, the "New musicology" is viewed as a phenomenon that is created at a certain point of time in the United States and it is being brought into the connection with the "New historicism" and some other recent historiographic paradigms. The author also finds several patterns of the reception of the "New musicology" and considers them to be paradigmatic (Bruno Nettl, Pieter van de Toorn, Olle Edström, Werner Grünzweig). To historicise "New musicology" with respect to the phenomenological discussions on the problem of "history" means to understand the mentioned musicology as a singular and at the same time repeating phenomenon, different not only from other, but also from itself.

  • Issue Year: 38/2001
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 51-72
  • Page Count: 21
  • Language: Croatian