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Reconciling Postmodernism and Analysis - Dutch Journal of Music Theory Article

This essay reviews the historical confrontation between postmodernism and contemporary music theory and analysis. To this end, it reviews how some of the notions considered pivotal to music theoretical discourse, such as subjectivity, authorial intention, organicism and unity, etc., have been problematized by new musicologists. Additionally it argues in favor of the re-assertion of these concepts as valid heuristic tools, especially with regards to recent music. The second part of the paper examines the music of the Catalan composer Hèctor Parra, whose particular compositional method mitigates the tensions between postmodernism and contemporary analytical thought.

Published in the Dutch Journal of Music Theory, Vol. 13, No. 3 (2008)


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