Postmodernism, narrativity, and the art of memory

Abstract

This article explores an important difference between modernist and postmodernist music, specifically in the role played by memory and contemplation of the past. It analyses Pierre Boulez's recent revision of his song cycle, Le Visage Nuptial, with regard to the role of influence anxiety and juxtaposes to this analysis a discussion of postmodernist approaches to music of the past. Then, examining some recent music of John Cage and Pauline Oliveros, the article proposes a new aesthetic in some ways postmodernist, in some ways moving beyond the modernist-postmodernist dialectic. This involves the emancipation of memory, the interpenetration of non-aesthetic with aesthetic domains, and the exploration of connections the listener may come to understand through memory. To explain the relationship between perception and thought in these works, it discusses these works in terms of new kinds of narrativity. The notion of a memory palace serves as a model for understanding their open, non-traditional kind of structure in whose construction the listener plays an important role.

KEY WORDS:

• postmodernism
• narrativity
• memory
• quotation
• gender connotations in music
• influence anxiety
• memory palace
• spatial metaphors in music