Reconsidering Stravinsky's aesthetics of objectivism: Antagonism between the Apollonian and the Dionysian

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Other Title
  • ストラヴィンスキーの客観主義美学再考 --アポロンとディオニュソスの拮抗--
  • ストラヴィンスキー ノ キャッカン シュギ ビガク サイコウ : アポロン ト ディオニュソス ノ キッコウ

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Abstract

This paper is an attempt to reconsider Igor Stravinsky's (1882-1971) often-cited statement of objectivist aesthetics, ‘music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all' (Autobiography). In this essay, based on the context of his statements, is will be first pointed out that Stravinsky perceived the same kind of dynamism in music as the ‘cadence' in poetry, that is, a cadence independent of meaning. Stravinsky was consistently materialistic. However, we will show that Stravinsky could have been a spiritualist approaching the world outside of materialism, through the keen eyes of Charles Ferdinand Ramuz (1878-1947). This paper then tries to find what the spiritualistic idea is in Stravinsky's performance theory. Stravinsky believed that two roles existed in the performance: executant and interpreter. It will be examined the hypothesis that what the interpretation of performance is attempting to focus on is, in fact, a view of spiritualism, deducing from Friedrich Nietzsche's (1844-1900) concept of the Apollonian and Dionysian. It is obvious that the words ‘order' and ‘Apollon' that governs it, which Stravinsky himself often mentioned, come from Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy (1872). Stravinsky particularly needed the laws of Apollon seeing the existence of the unordered, uncontrollable Dionysian in his music. Such antagonism between the Apollonian and the Dionysian is exemplified in Stravinsky's Duo Concertant (1931-32).

Journal

  • 人文學報

    人文學報 121 45-70, 2023-06-20

    THE INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH IN HUMANITIES, KYOTO UNIVERSITY

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