Philip V. Bohlman and Seth Brodsky - "Song Loves the Masses" and "From 1989"
Monday, February 12, 2018 - 6:00pm - 7:30pm
Philip V. Bohlman and Seth Brodsky discuss their books, Song Loves the Masses: Herder on Music and Nationalism and From 1989, or European Music and the Modernist Unconscious, respectively.At the Co-op
About the book: Distinguished ethnomusicologist Philip V. Bohlman compiles Johann Gottfried Herder’s writings on music and nationalism, from his early volumes of Volkslieder through sacred song to the essays on aesthetics late in his life, shaping them as the book on music that Herder would have written had he gathered the many strands of his musical thought into a single publication. Framed by analytical chapters and extensive introductions to each translation, this book interprets Herder’s musings on music to think through several major questions: What meaning did religion and religious thought have for Herder? Why do the nation and nationalism acquire musical dimensions at the confluence of aesthetics and religious thought? How did his aesthetic and musical thought come to transform the way Herder understood music and nationalism and their presence in global history? Bohlman uses the mode of translation to explore Herder’s own interpretive practice as a translator of languages and cultures, providing today’s readers with an elegantly narrated and exceptionally curated collection of essays on music by two major intellectuals.
About the author: Philip V. Bohlman is Ludwig Rosenberger Distinguished Service Professor of Music and the Humanities at the University of Chicago, where he is also Artistic Director of the ensemble-in-residence, The New Budapest Orpheum Society.
About the book: What happened to musical modernism? When did it end? Did it end? In this unorthodox Lacanian account of European New Music, Seth Brodsky focuses on the unlikely year 1989, when New Music hardly takes center stage. Instead one finds Rostropovich playing Bach at Checkpoint Charlie; or Bernstein changing “Joy” to “Freedom” in Beethoven’s Ninth; or David Hasselhoff lip-synching “Looking for Freedom” to thousands on New Year’s Eve. But if such spectacles claim to master their historical moment, New Music unconsciously takes the role of analyst. In so doing, it restages earlier scenes of modernism. As world politics witnesses a turning away from the possibility of revolution, musical modernism revolves in place, performing century-old tasks of losing, failing, and beginning again, in preparation for a revolution to come.
About the author: Seth Brodsky is Associate Professor of Music and the Humanities at the University of Chicago. He is the author of From 1989, or European Music and the Modernist Unconscious (California, 2017), and has published on such topics as opera, influence, and the music of John Cage and Benjamin Britten. He is currently at work on a book about music, psychoanalysis, and repetition.
Event Location:
The Seminary Co-op Bookstore
5751 S Woodlawn
Chicago, IL
60637
See map: Google Maps
Related Titles
Paperback | $29.95 | 9780520234956
Distinguished ethnomusicologist Philip V. Bohlman compiles Johann Gottfried Herder's writings on music and nationalism, from his early volumes of Volkslieder through sacred song to the essays on aesthetics late in his life, shaping them as the book on music that Herder would have written had...
Hardcover | $75.00 | 9780520279360
What happened to musical modernism? When did it end? Did it end? In this unorthodox Lacanian account of European New Music, Seth Brodsky focuses on the unlikely year 1989, when New Music hardly takes center stage. Instead one finds Rostropovich playing Bach at Checkpoint Charlie; or...