Musical organicism and its alternatives.

Abstract

Organicism is an aesthetic paradigm whose origins likely predate the Platonic exhortation that every discourse must be constructed like a living body--with head, middle, feet, and fitting relation between parts and whole. This dissertation surveys some historical sources of musical organicism: at its roots in ancient philosophy, in its reflorescence in the romantic era, and among such musical thinkers as Schenker and Schoenberg. Organicism is deeply embedded in Western artistic culture, but paradoxically, its influence has often gone unnoticed, and precise definitions of organicism are rare. The organic principle is defined here as a dialectic entailing overriding unity and (often teleological) growth; five secondary attributes and four accompanying dispositions are ascribed to this organicist model. In Western music, organicism serves as a fundamental paradigm guiding tonal and post-tonal composition alike; hence organicist aesthetics bridges the supposed ideological gap between tonal and certain later idioms. Organicist analyses of Brahms's Intermezzo Op. 76, No. 6 and Schoenberg's Klavierstuck Op.33a illustrate some of the typical manifestations of organicism in music, and reveal the organic link between tonal and twelve-tone composition. The twentieth-century quest for new compositional idioms has often yielded merely novel vehicles for conveying the well-worn values of organicist culture. But certain aspects of some organicist music--notably the projection of temporal continuity and teleology, and attendant notions of the autonomous, absolute artwork and divine-genius artist--increasingly appear ill suited to contemporary artistic expression. Existing alternatives to organically conceived theory and composition are examined including the formal alternatives proposed by minimalism, indeterminacy, and moment form. These movements claim to be influenced by non-Western aesthetic models, and the dissertation explores some ways in which such models might also provide impetus for further innovation. The dissertation also discusses some pioneering examples of feminist music scholarship and analyzes facets of organicist musical culture from a feminist perspective. An exegesis of Marilyn Shrude's 1982 piano work Solidarnosc engages some of the foregoing alternative perspectives, notably a critical method, influenced by Maus (1988), of uniting dramatic (and anthropomorphic) and technical description.