The disconfort of musicology

Authors

  • Jean-Jacques Nattiez University of Montreal
  • Luis Paulo Sampaio Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.35699/2317-6377.2005.55545

Keywords:

musicology, ethnomusicology, history of musical theory, semiology

Abstract

Musicology like the other Humanities is going through a difficult growth crisis which, according to the author of this text, is motivated by the ambiguous relationship it maintains with its subject of study: Music. Such ambiguity is due to three basic reasons which are described and analyzed in this article: 1) Being a language about Music, some people consider Musicology a parasitical discourse; 2) the unfolding of this discipline in a great number of specialized fields; 3) as the concept of art itself is one of its main subjects of study, many problems arise when Musicology deals with issues on authenticity and on the idea of the Beautiful in Music

Author Biographies

  • Jean-Jacques Nattiez , University of Montreal

    Jean-Jacques Nattiez is a Full Professor of Musicology at the Faculty of Music at the University of Montreal. Considered a pioneer of Musical Semiotics, he has published: Fondements d’une sémiologie de la musique (UGE, 10-18, 1975), Musicologie générale et sémiologie (Bourgois, 1987), De la sémiologie à la musique (UQAM, 1987), Le combat de Chronos et d’Orphée (Bourgois, 1993). He applied his semiological concepts to the relationships between music and literature (Proust musicien, Bourgois, 1984, 1999); to the works of Wagner (Tétralogies, Bourgois, 1983; Wagner androgyne, Bourgois, 1990); to the thought of Pierre Boulez (for whom he edited several volumes of writings, including correspondence with John Cage); and to the music of the Inuit (Canada), the Ainu (Japan), and the Baganda (Uganda), for which he published several records. He is the author of the novel Opera (Leméac, 1997) and the intellectual autobiography La musique, la recherche et la vie (Leméac, 1999). He was the first co-editor and co-founder of the Revue de musique des universités canadiennes, directing Circuit from 1990 to 1999. Today, he is the general director of a five-volume Encyclopedia of Music, whose publication in Italian by EINAUDI began in 2001, and in French by ACTE-SUD in 2003. He has written around 150 articles and given lecture series in twenty countries. Several of his books have been translated into English, Italian, and Japanese. A revised and expanded edition of Le combat de Chronos et d'Orphée will soon be published in Brazil by VIA LETTERA.

  • Luis Paulo Sampaio, Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro

    Luis Paulo Sampaio holds a PhD in musicology from the University of Montreal and is a Full Professor of Musical Analysis at the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro – UNIRIO.

References

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Published

2005-01-01

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No. 11 (2005): General Topics

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How to Cite

“The Disconfort of Musicology”. 2005. Per Musi, no. 11 (January): 5-18. https://doi.org/10.35699/2317-6377.2005.55545.

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