Em. prof. dr. Rokus de Groot, Universiteit van Amsterdam
Thursday 21 November 2019 15:30-17:00
Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16, room 3.01
Performers-cum-improvisers
and composers have to deal with the task to conduct the listeners – as well as
themselves – from non-musical time to time ordered by music.
Among
the ways to open a piece of music two approaches stand out, which are each
other’s opposite: ex nihilo and in mediis
rebus.
With the
approach of in mediis rebus one is thrown into musical time ‘unawares’. In fact,
since one finds oneself in mediis rebus,
one may feel inclined to assume that the music has been going on already for
some time, and only now is sounded and becomes audible.
A quite
different approach to open a composition is the one ex nihilo. We should add that this ‘nihil’ is relative, it is a
playful one, listeners have been accustomed to pretend to themselves that they
are open to what comes, while actually quite some previous knowledge is
required to enter into this process of opening. While the in mediis rebus entry is
abrupt, the alleged ex nihilo one is
gradual and gentle.
In this
presentation examples of both approaches from European and Indian sources will
be discussed.