A Gestalt music analysis : philosophical theory, method, and analysis of Iegor Reznikoff's compositions

Abstract

Jaana Utriainen on väitöskirjassaan luonut hahmofilosofisen musiikkianalyysiteorian ja –metodin GMAn (A Gestalt Music Analysis) ja soveltanut sitä ranskalaisen Iégor Reznikoffin neljään laulusävellykseen.- Etsin vastauksia väitteelle, jonka mukaan sävellyksistä on analysoitavissa ja tulkittavissa säveltäjän luova musiikillinen hahmoprosessi eli säveltäjän sisäinen musiikillinen hahmo. Lisäksi muodostin analyysimallin, jonka avulla musiikin hahmon laatu (Gestalt Quality) voidaan analysoida ja tulkita, Utriainen kertoo.Tutkimus kuuluu kognitiivisen musiikkitieteen, musiikin filosofian ja estetiikan tieteenaloihin. Monialaisen tutkimuksen päätuloksena on, että tutkimuksen väite: musiikin hahmo on säveltäjän sisäisen luovan prosessin representaatio, on todennettavissa ja että se voidaan analysoida ja tulkita GMAlla.

The aim of this study is to develop a Gestalt Music Analysis (GMA) theory and method that belongs to the field of cognitive musicology, music philosophy, and aesthetics. The GMA consists of three parts: theoretical, methodological, and music analytical. I theorize analytic frames, and introduced a method by which the Gestalt of a composer’s music can be analysed and interpreted in the context of a philosophy of (musical) mind. An-other aim of the study is to investigate the claim that a musical Gestalt is a representation of the composer’s inner creative process, and that said process can be analysed with the GMA. The results of the study revealed the composer’s inner creative Gestalt as a formu-laic circular process, as emotional formulas of micro-structural findings, and as perform-ance. The study also reveals the Gestalt quality of music as the “third dimension” of composition.The music is analyzed according to Gestalt philosophical theories, this is tosay, theo-ries of the conscious (musical) mind and phenomenology. Original Gestalt theory is de-rived from Austrian philosopher Christian von Ehrenels’s essay, “Über Gestaltqualitäten” (1890), which sheds light on this entire study. Prof. Jukka Louhivuori’s formula theory of development and Prof. Marc Leman’s representation theory are the basic modern Gestalt theories used in the analysis. I developed and adapted these theories in analyzing compo-sitions of the French chanter and composer, Professor Iegor Reznikoff. Therefore, both voice-analysis theory and spectral analysis play an important role in the GMA.The study has revealed that the method and theory were functional, providing an-swers to crucial questions. Formula analysis and its various parameters have revealed that creativity was based on unexpected formula Fe and the unconscious formula Ff, and their relations to the whole. The formula circle represents inner creative processes with con-tent formulas that form a circular movement. The inner impulse x, or a creative formula paradigm, was found from the frequency level of around 83 Hz (E) with a looping phe-nomenon, and was also hypothesized as a genetic formula at the micro-structural level.The Jubilus formula was the main manifestation of the inner creative Gestalt of Iegor Reznikoff, and it may represent his individual, audible, or visual experience of God or the sacral. The agent of the Gestalt was commonly the melismatic formula Fa with the vowel / a /, and the pre-Gestalt was mainly found from the formula content levels of Fc, Fd, or Fe with their movements towards formula Fa. Performance analysis bolstered resuls by examining the tension Gestalt in performance formulas. The Gestalt quality, or thirds dimension of the music, was found in individual consciousness with a meaningful mo-ment between two forms. As a result of collective consciousness, the Gestalt quality was revealed by “inside” and “outside” experiments of the compositions, which we may say refer to the human being, Gestalt, or God.From the present study we can conclude that all musical components of the analysis express the philosophical-aesthetic Gestalt phenomenon of musical dualism: high and low voices, upwards and downwards, mental and physical, mind and body, spirit and earth, as well as God and the mundane.