Hidden Disunities and Uncanny Resemblances: Connections and Disconnections in the Music of Lera Auerbach and Michael Nyman

Abstract

Does stylistic appropriation serve to create a sense of unity or disunity, continuity or fragmentation? Taking George Lipsitz's notion of ‘families of resemblance’ and intertextuality's dialogic qualities (as shown in the writings of Mikhail Bakhtin and Julia Kristeva), this article will put forward the argument that certain forms of quotation result in a kind of halfway house—an in-between state—where the text seemingly announces its own independence despite its (inter)dependence on a whole host of other intertexts. Unlike the collage-like, so-called polystylistic compositions of the late 1960s, which also used quotation, an altogether different and more deeply embedded form has developed since then, where the quoted material is integrated to a much greater extent on the surface, only to lay bare its ‘difference’ at a deeper level. Such ‘hidden discontinuities’ will be examined in relation to a single work, Lera Auerbach's Sogno di Stabat Mater (2005/2008), before applying Lipsitz's principle as a case study to Michael Nyman's oeuvre.

Keywords:

• Lera Auerbach's Sogno di Stabat Mater
• Michael Nyman
• Quotation and Intertextuality
• Mikhail Bakhtin
• Julia Kristeva
• George Lipsitz's ‘Families of Resemblance’

Notes

[1] Procol Harum's single ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ (Deram 7507) was released in May 1967.

[2] Percy Sledge's single ‘When a Man Loves a Woman’ (Atlantic 2326) was released in April 1966.

[3] Wendy [then Walter] Carlos's LP Switched-On Bach (Columbia Masterworks MS7194) was first released in March 1968.

[4] Pergolesi's Stabat Mater is also used extensively in Lars von Trier's disturbing film Dogville (2003) to evoke an unsettling and uncanny atmosphere.

[5] Allen defines heteroglossia as ‘language's ability to contain within it many voices, one's own and other voices’ (2000, p. 29).

[6] Derrida's essay ‘Des Tours de Babel’ suggests yet other ways of ‘reading’ Auerbach's music in this context (1991, pp. 243–253). Thanks to Lauren Redhead for drawing my attention to these connections.

[7] Part of this article draws from previous research contained in my book The music of Michael Nyman (see ap Siôn, 2007, pp. 59–80).

[8] Director Michael Winterbottom in fact used Nyman's in his film adaptation of Sterne's novel, A Cock and Bull Story (BBC Films, 2005).