“(Auto)biography as Musical Discourse”

The Ninth International Conference of The Department of Musicology and

Ethnomusicology, Faculty of Music, University of Arts, Belgrade, Serbia

The Ninth International Conference of The Department of Musicology andEthnomusicology (Faculty of Music, University of Arts, Belgrade, Serbia; April20-23, 2008) will discuss the topic (AUTO)BIOGRAPHY AS A MUSICOLOGICAL DISCOURSE Based on literary, historical, and cultural approaches, biography andautobiography of musicians include a participation of various disciplinessuch as political history, music history, sociology, philosophy, literarytheory, psychology, ethnology, gender studies, psychoanalysis.(Auto)Biography is constructed under the influence of rhetoricalstrategies, determined by contemporary ideology and politics, providingwide possibilities for recognizing, investigating, and defining it in thecontext of musicology discourses. Call for Papers Biographies of musicians regarded as distinguished creators marked theearly steps in music historiography as a distinct genre. As a matter offact, since a century before the very definition of 'Musikwissenschaft' in1885, biography was one of the keys historiographical, that is,musicological concepts, embracing different theoretical and methodologicalattitudes. Memoirs, diaries, correspondence, afterwards radio interviews,ethnographic life stories used to be regarded, however, only as a sourcematerial. But, since the 1970s, they formed unique autobiographicaldiscourse, overcoming the status of "victim of biography", a subject oftheoretical explications determined by four contracts: social,autobiographical, referential, and the implicit or explicit contractbetween author and reader (Philippe Le Jeune). Poststructuralists arefocused especially on the question of author in (auto)biographicaldiscourse, establishing the concept of function of the author (M.Foucault), death of the author (R. Barthes), the model of self-presentingfor the public (P. Bourdieu) in the frame of social and ideologicalcontext. (Auto)Biographical discourse also found significant place in therecent research of memorialism and decolonization (P. Nora). Withinfolklore studies - cultural anthropology and ethno methodology - thistopic is considered in relation to storytelling rights in both oral andwritten senses (A. Shuman). Consequently, (auto)biography has been asignifier of high-class world, inevitably connected with the question ofpower. These attitudes certainly provide broad theoretical approaches in(ethno)musicological research too. Historically speaking, music biography as well as autobiography andfictional music biography were established as an individual genre in 18thcentury (for instance, John Mainwaring's biography of Handel, 1760; andForkel's Ueber Johan Sebastian Bachs Leben, Kunst und Kunstwerke, 1802),in the context of musical lexicography and music history, and were definedmore clearly in early 19th century (memoirs by Berlioz, 1870, or Wagner,1870-80, for instance). Romantic authors also founded biography offictional musicians (one of the paradigmatic example is Wackenroder's Dasmerkwürdige musikalische Leben des Tonkünstlers Joseph Berlinger, 1797),which had their place in novels like Romain Rolland's. In that way,(auto)biographies of musicians can be regarded as mythologies (H.Blumenberg). As a reaction against the positivism of the 19th and early 20th century,expressed in Romantic treatment of biography as a key point in creativityvia the theory of genius (Anton Schindler, Biographie von Ludwig vanBeethoven, 1840; Otto Jahn, W. A. Mozart, 1856-1859; Philipp Spitta,Johann Sebastian Bach, 1873 and 1880; and Max Kalbeck, Johannes Brahms,1908-1915), the methodological perspective was neglected during the firstdecades of the 20th century. However, biography regained its status as oneof the important musicological discourses, due to cataloguing of sourcematerials in thematic catalogues and critical editions of the works ofchosen composers, music lexicons, dictionaries, Denkmäler series, and anincreasing discourse on the relation of biography and creativity.Moreover, style-orientated general histories of music were still mainlybased on biography and analysis of selected compositions, and(mis)understood composers' credo expressed in their memoirs (or,pseudo-memoirs by D. Shostakovich, for instance) or interviews (I.Stravinsky). In studies of new or cultural musicology, (auto)biography and otherdiscourses were redefined and reconstructed through applying genderstudies, psychoanalysis, and critical theory. Therefore, certain questionsare rising as possible perspectives: 1. the role of music (auto)biography in the concept of general andnational music historiography and lexicography or, in wider sense,national identity and forms of cultural memory as self-presentation(through the choice of so-called great composers and their certain worksin histories of music, monographs, music dictionaries, critical editions), 2. question of authenticity (interpretation of archival sources,documents, correspondence, memoirs, interviews, TV documentaries, movies,iconographical presentation of composers or performing artists in thecontext of more general approaching to the history, either through the19th-century reconstructing the "truthful facts" or contemporaryconstructed narrative), 3. considering works of music through (auto)poetical standpoints and(self)expression, analytical remarks as well as in (auto)biographies inmusic, construction of (auto)biography, or fictional (auto)biography, 4. the role of biography in traditional (folk) music studies (biographyin a narrow sense, as biography of individual folk musicians, perceivedthrough the relation personal-collective, or, in a wider sense,"biography" of a specific geographic region as a specific music dialect), 5. theoretical, sociocultural, and axiological aspects of there-introduction of biography as a methodological perspective in 20thcentury music historiography as a consequence, or counter movement todogmatic formalist and structuralist musicology - the invention of ananalytical system to repress (auto)biography; aspects of evaluation of andwithin (auto)biographical discourse in musicology. The language of the conference is English. It is possible to deliverpapers in German, French, Russian, or Serbian too, and the authors arekindly requested to provide translation to English. Each presenter willhave 20 minutes for the paper, followed by 10 minutes for discussion.Selected papers presented at the conference will be published in a volumeof proceedings. Send your abstract (about 250 words) in English to TatjanaMarkovic or Vesna Mikic not later than September 1, 2007. http://www.kakanien.ac.at/weblogs/editor/1158482964/index_html Sincerely,Tatjana MarkovicUniversity of Arts, Belgrade