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Freshman Studies Lecture: ‘The Rite of Spring’
Allen Gimbel

Lawrence University, February 1991

The following lecture was given upon invitation at Lawrence University in 1991 as the music component of that year's Freshman Studies curriculum. Lawrence's Freshman Studies program is intended to introduce Freshmen to various fields of study. Lawrence has a music conservatory, and those students were also meant to be meaningfully addressed. Musical illiteracy, therefore, was not to be assumed, though the notion of a musically literate general student population is and was utopian at best. Nevertheless, I tried to give everyone something to think about.

To this day, I have no idea who recommended this work as a Freshman Studies topic, or what exactly they had in mind (was it dinosaurs?) As it turned out, it wasn't a bad choice, though I'm sure my talk was not what the committee had in mind. Nevertheless, the student newspaper (The Lawrentian) named it one of the 10 most interesting events of the year. What follows is the lecture's original version, which included 2 Live Crew's 'Me So Horny' as an example. Permission was not granted to use that memorable tune, so I substituted MC Hammer's relatively innocuous 'U Can't Touch This' along with commentary on the more relevant material. See below. I've described the various handouts as thoroughly as possible, though hopefully some will be added to the site in the future.

*****

This morning I would like to talk with you about sex. [Pause] And now that I have your undivided attention, I can begin talking about the Stravinsky work that somehow found its way into this year's Freshman Studies curriculum, namely 'Le Sacre du Printemps', The Rite of Spring, a ballet written by Igor Stravinsky in 1912 (in Switzerland) and premiered, amidst much scandal, by the Ballet Russe in Paris in 1913. I will have more to say about what caused this scandal later, but for now let's concentrate on the title.

What is 'the Rite of Spring'? You see, when the last snowflakes of winter disappear (in Appleton, sometime in July), and the meadows become green, and the flowers begin to bloom, boys and girls feel their "hearts" fill with thoughts of... I will refrain from drawing a picture, or, worse, giving a live demonstration (at least not during this lecture) but a glimpse at Stravinsky's titles of the work's various sections will suffice to clarify:

The Augurs [prophecies] of Spring
Dances of the Young Girls
Ritual of Abduction [note: not seduction!]
Glorification of the Chosen One
Dance of the Earth
and finally, Sacrificial Dance.
The feminists among you will no doubt have realized by now that this scenario bears little resemblance to the pastoral scene I painted for you just a few moments ago, and if you are offended, you have every reason to be. This is a descent into sexual savagery, a violent, almost sadomasochistic descent to be sure, and I have every reason to believe that Stravinsky enjoyed every minute of it. Be that as it may, the same question arises that is being debated today, even as we speak, though in relation to the latest heavy metal video or rap album (incidentally, it would be interesting to trace the etymologies of "rape" and "rap"): What kind of social conditions could produce the kind of psyche that would create such a work? If art is indeed a subconscious reflection of the times in which it was produced, what does 'Le Sacre' tell us about the state of Europe (and Russia) in the second decade of the twentieth century? And if Stravinsky would have presented this scenario as a proposal to the National Endowment for the Arts today would he receive his grant? And what does the obvious answer to that question tell us about ourselves today?

And yet, this is a work accorded "mahsterpiece" status, and performed for audiences in fur coats, expensive perfume, and fat bank accounts who assemble in the "finest" citadels of "culture", noses in the air (considering the perfume I would hardly blame them), and armed with visions of a tuxedoed Tony Randall assuring them that their very presence will shield them from the unpleasantries of daily life, as long as their PBS subscriptions remain paid up. I can hear them saying: "Wasn't that a charming descent into sexual savagery, dear? Let's have some tea."

And besides, it's "only" music. Music's place in our culture may be safely defined as an immensely popular frivolity, taken very seriously in the manner of other immensely popular frivolities such as football, sitcoms, professional wrestling, or hanging out on College Ave. And, amazingly, sober analyses of these frivolities have found their way into the academy, indeed even making their way into the realm of general ed. requirements in some universities. The automatic equation of music with these frivolities, particularly (or perhaps exclusively) in our century (and especially in our country) has caused music to fall out of the Quadrivium and assume an at best peripheral role as a component of intellectual history. The fact (and I repeat, fact) that intentionally organized sound beyond the improvisatory, popular level is every bit as challenging, complex, and exhilarating as, say, quantum physics, underscores the absurdity of its absence, and it is thus a goal of my presentation today to place "music as art" back into its appropriate context. It is not at all difficult to bring the following "legitimate" fields of study into our discussion today: sociology, art history, biology, computer science, economics, literary criticism, history, mathematics, theater, philosophy, and psychology. I've already brought up physics. And I've already brought up sex, and I assure you that I will return to it presently. I have chosen to approach Stravinsky's ballet through sexual confrontations in the works of two other composers who also represent their times most explicitly: Mozart, for the late 18th century, and Wagner, for the late 19th.

Let us begin with an aria from Mozart's opera 'Don Giovanni' (1787) (Don Juan, that is): 'Vedrai carino' or 'Come here, baby.' The situation depicted in the aria runs as follows: Masetto and Zerlina are peasants who are about to be married. Don Giovanni (note: an aristocrat) has previously attempted to seduce Zerlina (note: a peasant), and Masetto is mad as hell. He confronts Don Giovanni, who promptly beats his brains out, and Masetto is left whining to Zerlina. Their dialogue immediately preceding the aria runs as follows:

Mas.(crying loudly): Ay, ay, my head! Ay, ay, my shoulders and my chest!
Zer. I think I hear Masetto.
Mas. Oh God, my Zerlina, help me!
Zer. What's the matter?
Mas. The fiend! He's broken my bones!
Zer. Oh poor me! Who?
Mas. Leporello [Don Giovanni's assistant or servant] or some devil that looks just like him.
Zer. What cruelty! Haven't I told you your stupid jealousy would get you into trouble? Where are you hurt?
Mas. Here.
Zer. And where else?
Mas. Here, and also here.
Zer. And any other places?
Mas. It hurts a little in this foot, this arm, and this hand.
Zer. Come, come, it's not so bad, as long as you're all right elsewhere. Come home with me; if you promise to stop being so jealous, I'll make you feel better, my sweetheart.

And then she sings the following in the key of C major, ironically symbolizing purity and innocence, and in the style of a minuet, mocking the aristocracy (and reflecting her desire to transcend her class -- note who she's singing to: a peasant).

Zer. Come here, baby [=carino],
and if you're good
what a fine remedy
I'll give to you.
It's natural,
not unpleasant,
and no chemist
knows how to make it.
It's a special balm
I always have with me.
If you'd like to try it
I can give you some.
Would you like to know
where I have it?
Feel it beating. [Putting his hand on her heart]
Touch me here. [Exit] [translation mine]

Now, before we hear the aria, we must place Mozart's work into its historical and stylistic context. Let's think about the year 1787. This is the year of the newly liberated United States' Constitutional Convention, and only 2 years away from the beginning of the French Revolution. The general historical designation of this period is known as the "Enlightenment", which reaches its climax at about this time. The thread I would like to start unraveling begins with the notion of "freedom", but specifically how sexuality is used as an artistic subject to reflect this desire. (Note the use of the word "desire" -- for freedom? For sex? Do they not seem equivalent?)

I mentioned that this aria is set as a minuet, a graceful courtly dance hardly to be associated with revolution or seduction, especially when the latter is meant to be a metaphor for the former. The aria is rather "naughty", and Zerlina's "teasing" of Masetto is illustrated in the music with brilliant subtlety by Mozart, not only by his choice of the courtly minuet for this subject, but by deeper and more profound means.

[Illustrate C major to V7 to C major (ex. I-IV-V7-I; I-IV-V7-V7-V7-V7... I) and how dissonance resolution is delayed in mm. 68-79]

[play aria]

To recapitulate, there is nothing necessarily sinister about the sexuality portrayed in this excerpt. In fact, the equation of sexuality with the hopes of a liberated society can only be interpreted as a POSITIVE equation, and any violence which might be necessary to cause this liberation certainly lies deeply below the surface.

A funny thing happens, however, when we skip forward 82 years to the year 1869, and consider the following excerpt from an opera by Wagner. This is the finale to 'Siegfried', the third opera in the great tetralogy (cycle of 4 operas) 'The Ring of the Nibelungs' (which some of you might have seen broadcast in its entirety last summer on the aforementioned PBS -- if only they knew...)

Between the hopefulness of 1789 and the year 1869, the effects of the Industrial Revolution were being felt with severity. An atmosphere of hopelessness and futility replaced the idealism of the turn of the previous century. This is exhibited with shocking clarity in the following excerpt.

To make a very long story short, Siegfried, the God's instrument of salvation through his free will (note: Siegfried is a mortal) is about to discover love (through which mankind might be saved) with the aid of Brünnhilde, a former goddess stripped of her goddess-hood for various reasons far too complex to go into here -- suffice it to say she is now also a mortal (note: a former immortal -- former aristocrat?). This scene is parallel to Mozart's since, like there, the revolution begins here. But look at the text:
Siegfried:
Ah! As our bloodstreams set each other ablaze,
as our glowing eyes scorch one another,
as our arms passionately clasp each other,
my daring and courage return to me,
and fear that --ah! --
I never learned,
that fear which you only just now taught me,
that fear, I think,
I have foolishly quite forgotten already!

Brünnhilde:
O childlike hero! O sublime boy!...
Laughing, I must love you,
laughing, I will bear my blindness;
laughing let us perish!
Farewell, Valhalla's glittering world!
Let your proud fortress fall to dust!
Farewell, resplendent pomp of the gods!
May your end be blissful, immortal race!
You Norns, snap your rope of symbols!
Dusk of the gods, let your darkness descend!
Night of annihilation, let your mist fall!
Siegfried's star now shines upon me!
He is mine forever, always mine,
my inheritance, my own, my one and all!
Radiant love, laughing death!

Siegfried:
Laughing, you awake in rapture to me:
Brünnhilde lives, Brünnhilde laughs!
Hail to the day that gleams about us!
Hail to the sun that shines upon us!
Hail to the world in which Brünnhilde lives!
She is awake, alive,
smiling at me...
She is forever mine, always mine,
my inheritance, my own, my one and all!
Radiant love, laughing death! [trans. from Solti recording, London 114 110 (LP), translator uncredited]

Now, the atmosphere here can hardly be described as "naughty" or "dainty." "Leuchtende Liebe, lachender Tod"--" radiant love, laughing death" shouted in ecstasy as they lock in the ultimate embrace. The love = death dialectic (the entire subject, in fact, of another of Wagner's operas, 'Tristan und Isolde'), finds its expression not only in the world of nineteenth century music, but in the world of nineteenth century philosophy as well. Arthur Schopenhauer is the central figure here, called by Wagner "the greatest philosopher since Kant." Wagner, in a letter to the composer Franz Liszt (dated 12/16/1854 and reproduced as p. of your handout), writes (of Schopenhauer):

"His chief idea, the final negation of the desire of life, is terribly serious, but it shows the only salvation possible... This is the genuine, ardent longing for death, for absolute unconsciousness, total non-existence. Freedom from all dreams is our only final salvation." (Goldman, Sprinchorn, 'Wagner on Music and Drama', p.271)

Perhaps it has occurred to you that there is at least one other human activity other than death (or sleep) that provides a similar "unconsciousness", i.e. escape from the horrors of daily life, namely sex. Hence, the love-death equivalence. Note Brünnhilde's lines: "the wisdom of heaven flees from me, chased away by the joy of love!" Thus it is only through unconsciousness (love and/or death) that industrialized man can gain his freedom ("Freedom from all dreams is our only final salvation" -- see above).

These sentiments could hardly be set musically as a dainty minuet. Wagner's setting is one of heated sensuality, culminating in (climaxing in, so to speak) an almost violent hysteria. This should be obvious to all of you on first hearing, but what might be less obvious to you is the sophisticated musical execution of these ideas.

Wagner developed in his operas the technique of the "Leitmotif", or "leading motive", a small musical fragment that is used to symbolize a character, a feeling, or an idea. Virtually every note in this scene can be traced to motives presented at some time in the previous 12 hours of the cycle, but I would like to point out a few of them contained in this brief excerpt:

-ecstasy
-fate
-dragon
-Valkyries
-Siegfried
-Siegfried's love
-Love's Bond

[demonstrate motives]

These motives run by fast and furious in the excerpt, so I'll shout them out to you, but note particularly the ending: after they both scream the words "radiant love, laughing death", the motive of ecstasy is played by the orchestra as they lock in their embrace, and the curtain closes with an enormous, swelling statement of Siegfried's love motive (think about it).

[Play excerpt]

Thus far we have seen a historical movement from a sexuality of social change (revolution) to a sexuality of escape. But what if it turned out that there WERE no escape? This brings us to the 'Rite of Spring'.

Psychoanalysis has taught us that sexual violence is a psychotic last resort in response to unbearable psycho-social conditions. What makes Stravinsky's depiction of the unspeakable doubly disturbing is the musical abstraction with which it is expressed. This, of course, is perfectly in line with much twentieth century art: think of the difficulty of uncovering the messages of much abstract painting, for example. Be that as it may, current music theory has developed methodology borrowed from the field of mathematics (principally set and group theory) which enables us to decode some of these messages.

Page of your handout shows the chromatic scale, i.e. all the white and black keys of the piano within the octave. There are 12 notes in all, and we can number them from 0-11 (this is a modulo12 system, which is why we don't number them 1-12: ask your math teacher.) Now, consider for example how many combinations of 3 notes might be available for potential musical use. Starting from C, we could use this "set" of 3 pitches (called a trichord) [play 0 1 2] or this [0 1 3] or even this [0 1 4]. However, unless you're a fan of twentieth century art music (and please don't argue with me about the meaning of that term unless you've read Adorno -- and if you don't know who HE is ask me sometime) you know pretty much only one of these -- this one [play triad]. And, in fact, all of the music we've heard today emanates from that one type of chord (as does pop music).

At the beginning of the twentieth century composers began experimenting with the "other" sonorities (there are, of course, previously unexplored combinations of 4, 5, 6, etc. pitches as well). Stravinsky was among these composers, and the opening of the 'Rite of Spring' explores essentially two of them: 0 2 3 and 0 3 5 ("pc set 3-7 is a kind of motto trichord in the work", Forte, p. 36 fn.9). (These are reducible into even more abstract formulations, but not today.)

Let's now consider the opening of the piece, a melody played in the highest range of the bassoon (an outrageous way to begin a piece, incidentally; more on that later). I will call 0 2 3 Mr. X and 0 3 5 Ms.Y, although you are welcome to reverse their genders if you so desire. The first "gesture" goes like this [play opening: C Bgeb A] -- what we could refer to as a free ORNAMENTATION of Mr. X. Next, we hear this [play C B A d (g) a =C b A D (g) A]. Here, Mr. X and Ms. Y are, if not joined, at least in the same meadow. Mr. X says his peace, and Ms.Y answers him. They continue in like manner, touching each other, separating, and so forth. [See analysis, mm. 1-20]

Soon, a variant of Mr.X occurs, which I have called X2 (m. 21: (a#) a G# g g# G, E). The explanation of this is as follows: the original X consists of the intervals of a minor third and a half step; X2 rearranges these relationships into a new, but related, trichord (0 1 3). Is this a competing male? He makes his presence felt (mm. 21-28) but Ms.Y gravitates back to the original Mr.X (English Horn, m. 29). They interact as before (flutes). For a moment there seem to be 2 females. Chaos ensues as if all of nature is exploding in unbridled sexual splendor. Then, the opening recurs. Ms. Y appears to be making her decision (vn. pizz. m. 66). And then this chord, set with the most savage, pulsating rhythm imaginable.

[Play chord with rhythm]

The top three notes of this chord ARE Ms. Y. The entire chord may be analyzed as follows: Bb Db Eb=0 3 5 (Bb=0) (this is called "transposition"). The remainder of the chord consists of the notes Fb G Ab and Cb. Put in that order, we note that these are two linked versions of X2, Mr. X's "competitor": Fb G Ab (see mm. 21) and G Ab Cb (an inversion). So maybe she chose HIM. But if we combine the top two notes of the chord (Db Eb) with the lowest note (Fb) -- there is the original Mr.X! In any event, this demonstrates a property familiar to those of you who have studied elementary algebra. We have 2 musically distinct sets merging. This is called, in mathematical terms, UNION. Draw your own conclusions.

The analysis (handout) draws these relationships explicitly, and if you read music you should be able to hear what I've been talking about with a little practice.

[Play excerpt: Introduction through Dance of the Adolescents]

The above admittedly fanciful analysis serves to make several not unrelated points (though the analysis is not nearly as fanciful as it seems. Stravinsky himself describes this passage in this way: "During this time the adolescent girls come from the river. They form a circle which MINGLES WITH the boys' circle... the groups separate and compete...")

First, it should be apparent that we have moved from Mozart's entirely HUMAN world of entirely HUMAN relationships, with the concomitant entirely HUMAN themes of freedom and class struggle, to a metaphysical world of transcendence and escape (Wagner), and finally (Stravinsky) to a world of primitive, almost cellular confrontation, virtually devoid of human feeling, politics, or philosophy. In fact, Stravinsky has remarked that the opening was given to the woodwinds, "not to the strings, which are too symbolic of the HUMAN voice" (Vera Stravinsky, 'Stravinsky In Pictures and Documents', p. 525).

Could a casual (or, indeed, a serious) listener possibly discern the abstract, complex relationships I've described to you? Of course not: but there WAS a riot at the work's premiere. We may assume that Stravinsky's audience was not well versed in aspects of atonal set theory, since these concepts were first formalized by the American theorist Allen Forte in his book 'The Structure of Atonal Music' published, not in 1913, but in 1973. And although many of you might even question the notion of audible structures in the works of Mozart and Wagner (or the concept of audible musical structures at all, the very problem I addressed in the opening of this lecture), you must take my word for the fact that those structures are easily perceptible by any trained listener (note I said "listener", not "musician"). So what, then, caused the scandal?

You may have already guessed that it probably was not the music -- in fact, it was the choreography. Stravinsky complains about this in his Autobiography: "Nijinsky [the choreographer] (did not) make any attempt to understand my own choreographic ideas for Le Sacre. In the Danses des Adolescentes [the passage with the chord], for example, I had imagined a row of almost motionless dancers. Nijinsky made of this piece a big jumping match."

And, furthermore, it has been related to me personally by the American composer David Diamond (who spent time in Paris in the 30s and thus knew people who were at the premiere) that everything about the production reeked of an obvious, intentionally "shocking", and inevitably parodistic eroticism. Interestingly, only one year later (1914) the work was presented again in Paris WITHOUT the choreography (i.e. in the concert hall), and Stravinsky scholar Pieter van den Toorn reports that "the composer, hoisted to the shoulders of a few bystanders, was led triumphantly from the hall by an exuberant crowd of admirers." Thus, music is permitted to retain its secret subtexts, and the true 'Rite' is left to be understood only by the initiated.

Yet, skipping ahead one more time 78 years to the present, one is confronted with the phenomenon of the "music video", in which all specifically musical meaning is thoroughly suppressed in favor of a purely visual stimulus (the very situation Stravinsky objected to in Nijinsky's staging). And what are we to make musically of my final example?

[Play 2-Live Crew: 'Me So Horny'] [1]

Here, song has been reduced to speech. This is not the first time in the history of music where this has occurred: in fact, a work written in Vienna by Arnold Schoenberg in 1912 -- the same year as the 'Rite of Spring' -- also reduces the vocal line to a half-speech/half-song technique called "Sprechstimme" (literally, speech-song). This piece is called 'Pierrot Lunaire', and I would ask you to explore that work also, which, like the works under discussion, deals explicitly with aspects of social decay. But, most importantly, the Schoenberg is like the Stravinsky in its deeply intellectualized formal (musical) organization, thus, like the Stravinsky, setting up an expressive tension between the ultra-rational and ultra-irrational.

There is no such tension here. As song has been reduced to speech, the musical organization has been reduced to the "riff", a mindlessly repetitive motive repeated interminably on one dynamic level and without significant transformation of any kind. If one adds the brutal text, the picture is complete. The cellular confrontation of Stravinsky has now been further reduced to a violent, actually criminal sexuality, continuing the descent in that parameter traced to this point, but the intellectual parameter [so evident in the works we've discussed of Mozart, Wagner, Stravinsky and Schoenberg] has [by this time] completely disappeared. [1b]

A summation of the ideas I have presented to you today is displayed on the final page of your handout. [2] The artists, and their respective time periods, are represented by the center line. Above the line, the increase of intellectualism is represented (the "ism" is intentional. I intend no assertion that Mozart is somehow "less intellectual than Stravinsky. What is meant here is the increasing tendency toward intellectual abstraction moving, perhaps, beyond the limits of human cognitive capacity); below the line the simultaneous decrease in what can only be described as "humanistic" sexuality (or the "humane" in general) is displayed. When the end of the graph is reached, there is an explosion, since in the present pop culture there is no longer even any ATTEMPT to mask this descent from humanity in the cloak of ARTIFICE or symbol (note that the term "art" is derived from the word "artifice".) This means, among other things, that the multi-leveled richness of meaning encountered in the Mozart, Wagner, and Stravinsky works, a richness BUILT INTO the artistic edifice by brilliant and experienced minds blessed with that rarest and most precious of human commodities, INSIGHT, has been replaced by an amateurism as shallow (i.e. one-dimensional) as it is accessible. What makes the Stravinsky work pivotal -- though it is only one of the most famous among a general trend emanating from Europe at this time: one might ironically credit Walt Disney for this fame, since Le Sacre was turned into a cartoon in 'Fantasia' -- (What makes the Stravinsky work pivotal) is the increasing distance between a message every bit as dehumanized as our rap example, and its relatively hyper-intellectualized mode of presentation.

In order to deflate accusations of snobbery, racism, or anything else that might result from my choice of the rap example -- a clear, but perhaps "easy" target -- I will close with an example from the world of contemporary art music which could easily take its place along 2-Live Crew at the end of the graph. The composer is named Brian Ferneyhough, a British composer now teaching at the University of California at San Diego (thus, an academic -- like me). These are the first 5 measures of a recent work for piano entitled 'Lemma-Icon-Epigram', written in 1981.

[Play opening, 2 times if possible]

The latest issue of the contemporary music journal Perspectives of New Music (available in our library) devotes 100 pages to this composer, 10 of which are devoted to what you just heard. Suffice it to say that the compositional processes at work here make the 'Rite of Spring' seem like 'Happy Birthday', though many of these processes derive inevitably from Stravinsky and his contemporaries.

Ferneyhough, asked by his interviewer to explain what role contemporary art should play in our society, provides the following answer:

"I believe that new and challenging aesthetic approaches ARE still possible and represent one of the very few open spaces, in increasingly over-developed Western society, for a resensibilization to the possibility of the "total individual" beyond the manipulative splintering of our social selves which is turning us increasingly into sleepwalking jugglers. Whether the individual work IS STILL CAPABLE of achieving such momentary reintegration is UNCLEAR, but at least it can aim at making us vitally aware of the UTOPIAN POSSIBILITY." (PNM p. 38)

Note that Ferneyhough raises doubts for the current possibility of art playing any communicative redemptive role whatsoever in our society, a role now apparently only possible in a utopia. His music is for a listener who does not presently exist (and has never existed). This listener SEEMS like Nietzsche's superman, but even Zarathustra must come out of his solitude to communicate with his people (but NOT the masses). As insight has been replaced (in 2-Live Crew) by an amateurism as shallow as it is accessible, here insight has been replaced by a professionalism as shallow as it is inaccessible.

Stravinsky himself saw the dangers inherent in this approach, and immediately put his extraordinary intellect to less "savage" uses, embracing and yet reinterpreting classical forms, materials, and aesthetics in the even more controversial period of his career now designated "Neo-classical" -- but that's another lecture.

In the meantime, let's consider once more the graph. One cannot help but notice that the scheme represented here has at least one more most frightening implication. Let's think of the atomic bomb: this weapon can only be conceived (and produced) by the highest intellectual power imaginable -- and yet its use can only be justified in concert with the utmost disdain for human life. Does art, then, imitate life? Or will life, God forbid, ONCE AGAIN imitate art?

The 'Rite of Spring' thus takes its place in a particular, rather frightening line stretching back to the Enlightenment and continuing, or perhaps exploding, in the here and now. But this is only one thread. What makes music (and art in general) in this century so fascinating are the tensions between this thread and a continuously present opposing thread, which acknowledges human perception, human values, and human history, while both rejecting the dangers of the hyper-rational and, at the same time, the banality of a mythological and corporate-driven populism. Do you know who the people involved in this thread are? I hope you will strive to encounter them during your years here at Lawrence. Thank you.

-- -- -- -- --

Discussion Topics [supplied to instructors as requested]

1) The role of women from positive redemptive forces (Mozart and Wagner) to negative receptacles (Stravinsky and 2-Live Crew)

2) How changing social conditions have created such dialectics, and how our notion of "progress" may be false and manipulative

3) Music's historic place in the Quadrivium and its demise in this century

4) Further interdisciplinary discussion of the philosophy and literature of the Enlightenment (Descartes vs. de Sade, for example), the Industrial Revolution (especially Schopenhauer), and Modernism (especially Adorno vs. pop culture)

5) Increased reliance on mathematical and scientific abstraction as a symbol for the decline of humanism (current trends in all fields will reflect this).

6) Our current dependence on visual (read: realistic) rather than aural or literary (read: symbolic) stimuli (see question 3)

7) Tensions between the ultra-rational and the ultra-irrational

8) How the contemporary corporate machine annexes revolution or subversion toward its own ends (see Martin Jay, 'Adorno', chapter 4: "Culture as Manipulation, Culture as Redemption")

-- -- -- -- --

NOTES

[1] The following was read following the substituted MC Hammer excerpt (a hit at the time):

Now, I KNOW that MC Hammer is not the example I SHOULD be using here: that would be ideally the second track on side A of 2-Live Crew's 'As Nasty as they Wanna Be', so as an introduction to college-level research I would ask you to find it and listen to it, bearing in mind the ideas I've presented to you today. (2-Live Crew does incidentally provide some critique of Mr. Hammer later on their album: "MC What? I can't even see his face with those bloomers on!")

Nevertheless, this relatively innocent example is instructive as a "type", and other less innocent examples may be substituted (outside of rap, in the heavy metal world in particular). Keep those examples in mind in my following comments: this lecture is not intended to degenerate into a challenge to academic freedom.

[1b] How ironic that MC Hammer dedicates his CD to "all black COLLEGES trying to survive the economic crunch" -- and that the angry, "revolutionary" ardor exemplified by 2-Live Crew has now been taken up by the white corporate machine (the music INDUSTRY) and turned into a multi-billion dollar commodity, like, say, toothpaste: the very situation explored, again, by Adorno.

[2] The graph depicts a straight line with four bisections: the first is marked (below the vertical) Mozart (1787); the second, Wagner (1869); the third, Stravinsky (1912); and the fourth, Rap etc. (1991). Above the line is a crescendo marking beginning somewhat before the second bisection and moving toward the fourth. Above the crescendo marking is the term "intellectualism". Below and parallel to the crescendo marking is a decrescendo, below which is the term '"humanistic" sexuality'. Above the bisection marked "Rap etc.", there is a blot representing an explosion.

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