04/01/2024
This week in colloquium, Joey Grunkemeyer will give his public lecture, titled “Brahms the Self-Conscious: Contextualizing His Musical Topics”. Join us in SM267 at 4:00 pm on Wednesday!
Abstract: “Many theorists have alluded to Brahms’s musical topics, making passing references to 18th and 19th century conventions, yet no one has critically examined how topics operate in his music. In this paper, I argue that Brahms’s music benefits from topical analysis, but his usage of topic is self-conscious and subversive. I provide a broad literature review of 19th century topic theory, followed by Brahms-specific approaches. Building on this review, I propose a methodology based on 18th and 19th century approaches, as well as the idea of self-consciousness. I then demonstrate this methodology through two case studies, Brahms’s Tragic Overture and the E Minor Intermezzo, opus 119, no. 2, arguing that sensitive topical analyses provide new and valuable ways of hearing these pieces. Brahms’s tactics include self-conscious deployment of musical topics, deliberate subversions of existing tropes, and ideas of reminiscence and nostalgia.”
