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MUSICOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM

07/11/2019

How to open a musical composition?

Colloquium Musicology
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.