Deleuze And Music

Drawing out the 'unwritten' book on music from which Deleuze left many clues, but no manuscript, the essays in this volume explore what he said and thought about music and how music informed his thinking.

It is the contention of the editors and contributors of this volume that the work carried out by Gilles Deleuze, where rigorously applied, has the potential to cut through much of the intellectual sedimentation that has settled in the fields of music studies. Deleuze is a vigorous critic of the Western intellectual tradition, calling for a 'philosophy of difference', and, despite its ambitions, he is convinced that Western philosophy fails to truly grasp (or think) difference as such. It is argued that longstanding methods of conceptualizing music are vulnerable to Deleuze's critique. But, as Deleuze himself stresses, more important than merely critiquing established paradigms is developing ways to overcome them, and by using Deleuze's own concepts this collection aims to explore that possibility.

The analysis of film music is emerging as one of the fastest-growing areas of interest in film studies. Yet scholarship in this up-and-coming field has been beset by the lack of a common language and methodology between film and music theory. Drawing on the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, film studies scholar Gregg Redner provides a much-needed analysis of the problem which then forms the basis of his exploration of the function of the film score and its relation to film's other elements. Not just a groundbreaking examination of persistent difficulties in this new area of study, Deleuze and Film Music also offers a solution—a methodological bridge—that will take film music analysis to a new level.

Music After Deleuze explores how Deleuzian concepts offer interesting ways of thinking about a wide range of musics. The concepts of difference, identity and repetition offer novel approaches to Western art music from Beethoven to Boulez and Bernhard Lang as well as jazz improvisation, popular and sacred music. The concepts of the 'rhizome', the 'assemblage' and the 'refrain' enable us to think of the specificity of musical works as the meeting of productive forces, for example in the contemporary opera of Dusapin and the experimental music theatre of Aperghis. The concepts of smooth and striated space form the starting point for musical and political reflections on pitch in Western and Eastern music. Deleuze's notion of time as multiple illumines the distinctive conceptions of musical time found in Debussy, Messiaen, Boulez, Carter and Grisey. Finally, the innovative semiotic theory forged in Deleuze-Guattarian philosophy offers valuable insights for a semiotics capable of engaging with the innovative, molecular music of Lachenmann, Aperghis and Levinas.

Bogue provides a systematic overview and introduction to Deleuze's writings on music and painting, and an assessment of their position within his aesthetics as a whole. Deleuze on Music, Painting and the Arts breaks new ground in the scholarship on Deleuze's aesthetics, while providing a clear and accessible guide to his often overlooked writings in the fields of music and painting.

It is the contention of the editors and contributors of this volume that the work carried out by Gilles Deleuze, where rigorously applied, has the potential to cut through much of the intellectual sedimentation that has settled in the fields of music studies. Deleuze is a vigorous critic of the Western intellectual tradition, calling for a 'philosophy of difference', and, despite its ambitions, he is convinced that Western philosophy fails to truly grasp (or think) difference as such. It is argued that longstanding methods of conceptualizing music are vulnerable to Deleuze's critique. But, as Deleuze himself stresses, more important than merely critiquing established paradigms is developing ways to overcome them, and by using Deleuze's own concepts this collection aims to explore that possibility.

First published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Deep Refrains is a wide-ranging investigation of the philosophy of music. Michael Gallope asks what it means for music to "speak” when it is not saying anything in particular. To answer this question, he turns to the writings of some of the most revered thinkers of the twentieth century--Ernst Bloch, Theodor Adorno, Vladimir Jank�l�vitch, Gilles Deleuze, and F�lix Guattari. For these theorists, Gallope argues, the paradox that music is both ineffable and yet harbors deep philosophical wisdoms is fertile ground for thinking outside of conceptual boundaries. It provides the lens for a utopian potentiality that inspires hope (Bloch), an ethical critique of modernity (Adorno), an exemplification of the ephemeral movement of lived time (Jank�l�vitch), and a sonic extension of the syncopated, contrapuntal rhythms of sense and social life (Deleuze and Guattari). Gallope argues that a philosophical engagement with music’s ineffability rarely calls for silence or declarations of the unspeakable. Rather, it asks us to think through the ways in which the impact of music is made to address complex philosophical problems specific to the modern world.