Page 159 - Composing Processes and Artistic Agency

148 Musicological perspectives on composing

level is inconsequential overall. Rather, there is a tension between the con-
ceptual dimension and the intra-musical dimension, in which the momentum
of autonomous musical developments may well become the focus of attention
in some segments. This is particularly true for segments of the second half of
the piece, where the instrumental parts move again and again into truly virtuoso
passages, whose structure cannot be understood simply as the transcription of
conceptual guidelines.
Overall, enlarging the empirical resources for work genesis as compared to
conventional musicological analyses (which are primarily based on the score and,
at most, existing sketches) should open up perspectives that gain more profound
insights into the composing processes. This should be particularly true of the
often meandering paths of decision-making and the forms of knowledge that
underpin them, as well as the complexity of the components under consideration
(such as the relevance of contemporaneous discourses). Admittedly, some areas
of the composing process are simply inaccessible to observation and here even a
widening of the perspective does not facilitate further discoveries. However,
this should not discourage academics from searching for the most suitable
perspectives and questions – even though composing practice cannot be fully
comprehended and even if, in keeping with actor-network theory, analysis must
be more about describing than explaining operational sequences.

Notes
1 The example of Mozart research, in particular, displays the Romantic notion of the
masterpiece as something that had been already completed in the imagination of
the genius before it was written down. Therefore every single note could only be
thus and not otherwise. In this view, which persisted long into the 20 th century,
sketches could only be a sign of a deficit that might mark the underlying concept of
genius, partly because such a deficit upset the impression of effortless achievement.
Sketch studies have thus contributed quite significantly to demystifying the emphatic
Romantic concept of artistic creation.
2 In the post-war period, Darmstadt quickly became an important centre for theories
of composing, which were shaped by Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luigi
Nono and Theodor W. Adorno, among others. These discourses were conditioned
by a rational understanding of composing that was determined to exclude anything
loaded with meaning and focused instead on structure.
3 Until the 1970 and 1980s, musicological research systematically ignored the work of
female composers. This sexist bias in musicology corresponded with a strong
asymmetrical gender representation in the concert world.
4 The works can be heard on our project website at http://www.mdw.ac.at/ims/komp
ositionsprozesse

Bibliography

Adorno, Theodor W. (1997) Aesthetic Theory. New York: Continuum.
Bahle, Julius (1930) Zur Psychologie des musikalischen Gestaltens: Eine Untersuchung
über das Komponieren auf experimenteller und historischer Grundlage. Leipzig: Aka-
demische Verlagsgesellschaft.