Towards a Rhetorical Performance of Contemporary Music

Author(s)

William Teixeira da Silva

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Escola de Comunicações e Artes (ECA/SBD)
• Defense date: 2017-12-15

Examining board members

Silvio Ferraz Mello Filho; Graziela Bortz; André Luís Giovanini Micheletti; Adriana Lopes da Cunha Moreira

• Advisor: Silvio Ferraz Mello Filho

Abstract

This thesis examines the possibilities of applying rhetoric as an interpretive device of Contemporary Music. Rhetoric is taken here in its classical scope, but also in an updated way to current thinking, through the contributions from the movement known as New Rhetoric. Contemporary music, in its turn, is represented here by pieces written by composers such as Bernd Alois Zimmermann, Iannis Xenakis and Roberto Victório. In this way, firstly, definitions of what is understood as music, musical discourse and musical meaning will be exposed, establishing a postulate about the metaphysical status of music, especially in its current production. Then we will study the mechanisms that guarantee the possibility of not only affirming the existence of meaning but of knowing it through the adequate knowledge of an affective reality, a Stimmung, epistemologically accessed through empathy and sensation. However, this knowledge is a living knowledge, which demands to be put into practice to effectively exist, resulting in an ethical complex where levels of responsibility interact within the discursive dynamics of music. Finally, two main instances of rhetorical performance will be exposed: formation and gesture. The first concerns the processes by which performance itself constitutes a musical form; this musical form as process then gives rise to a temporal structure in formation rather than an objectified scheme. Musical gesture, in turn, is the embodiment of meaning, bringing life to music through its gesturing and bringing life through it, resulting in a rhetorical performance of Contemporary Music. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 15/00136-5 - Towards a rhetorical performance of contemporary music
• Grantee: William Teixeira da Silva
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate