Abstract
The article presents a general survey of the field of Musical Signification, as it appears in a textbook that the author has published in 2014 (Música i sentits [Music and Senses]). The idea is to discuss the way in which the book’s list of contents classifies this area of musicology, inevitably favoring some aspects over others. The book responds to frequent requests of Analysis students, who require an accessible text where all these questions are organized, summarized, explained and provided with examples, to be used in further analyses. The main concepts of scholars such as Márta Grabócz, Robert Hatten, Raymond Monelle, Philip Tagg and Eero Tarasti, have been considered and synthesized into this new text. The analytical and theoretical aspects in each chapter are presented one after the other, to allow different approaches and to promote a useful, practical reading without neglecting its musicological basis. The ultimate standpoint is that of Dario Martinelli’s Numanities, i.e. a passionate, yet thorough reflexion about the role that traditional humanities can and should play in our time.
Drawing together the many aspects of musical semiotics is like rounding up a flock of particularly wayward sheep; alas, some have got away from the present shepherd (Monelle 1992: Preface).
To Esti Sheinberg, in gratitude.
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Notes
- 1.
The first edition of Música i sentits [Music and Senses] is in Catalan. A second, improved edition, translated into English, is on its way. A Spanish version is also planned. After sketching out some of the main ideas and premises which inform the textbook, the table of contents is shown, only to go into some of the chapters in detail.
- 2.
I’ve also taken care to provide audio samples, mostly from youtube, that can be accessed easily from the online part of the book. On that website, as a complement to the printed edition, the reader can also contact the author, and I can enhance the text constantly, enriching it with nuances, new versions and examples.
- 3.
Now the balance between accessibility and musicological foundation has found a solution that Dr. Esti Sheinberg kindly suggested to me, one of the colleagues to whom I am grateful for a friendly and patient reading of earlier versions of the manuscript.
- 4.
Quoted by Bartel (1997: 198).
- 5.
In the 4th volume of the New Oxford History of Music, entitled The Age of Humanism 1540–1630, the word “Madrigalism” appears nine times, without ever giving any example, or even explaining its meaning. Cf. Carter and Butt (2005).
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- 8.
- 9.
In a 2013 paper for a conference on narratology (2nd International Meeting on Narratology and the Arts “Art as Text. Narratological, Semiotic and Transmedial Approaches”, 5–7 December 2013, Strasbourg), my analyses found a subtle difference between the Classical and the Romantic persona: the former seems to be displaying its own capacities, whereas the latter sounds like an inner monologue, or a dialogue with itself.
References
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Grimalt, J. (2017). Musical Signification: A Systematic, Analytical and Pedagogical Approach. In: Povilionienė, R. (eds) Sounds, Societies, Significations. Numanities - Arts and Humanities in Progress, vol 2. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47060-3_16
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