{"title":"Sonic witnesses: music, testimony, and truth","authors":"Ariana Phillips-Hutton","doi":"10.1080/17411912.2021.1944254","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Ever since Richard Taruskin pointed to Steve Reich’s use of survivor testimony in hailing the composer’s Different Trains (1988) as ‘the only adequate musical response … to the Holocaust’, composers of Western art music have embraced musicalised testimony as a form of truthful sonic witnessing to historical conflict. This persistent connection between music and testimony often is framed as documenting memories of trauma, yet this interpretation does not address the reciprocal relationships between the presumed truths of sound and its aesthetic presentation in music. Driven by Hannah Arendt’s claim that ‘factual truths are never compellingly true’, in this essay I trace the interpenetration of documentary sound and music as conveying a compelling reality or truth. This is followed by examples of testimonial witnesses in works by Philip Miller and Mary Kouyoumdjian. Finally, I reflect on the roles that testimonial music might play in imparting such compelling truths in connection with societal conflict.","PeriodicalId":43942,"journal":{"name":"Ethnomusicology Forum","volume":"30 1","pages":"266 - 282"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2000,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17411912.2021.1944254","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Ethnomusicology Forum","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17411912.2021.1944254","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"MUSIC","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
ABSTRACT Ever since Richard Taruskin pointed to Steve Reich’s use of survivor testimony in hailing the composer’s Different Trains (1988) as ‘the only adequate musical response … to the Holocaust’, composers of Western art music have embraced musicalised testimony as a form of truthful sonic witnessing to historical conflict. This persistent connection between music and testimony often is framed as documenting memories of trauma, yet this interpretation does not address the reciprocal relationships between the presumed truths of sound and its aesthetic presentation in music. Driven by Hannah Arendt’s claim that ‘factual truths are never compellingly true’, in this essay I trace the interpenetration of documentary sound and music as conveying a compelling reality or truth. This is followed by examples of testimonial witnesses in works by Philip Miller and Mary Kouyoumdjian. Finally, I reflect on the roles that testimonial music might play in imparting such compelling truths in connection with societal conflict.
期刊介绍：
Articles often emphasise first-hand, sustained engagement with people as music makers, taking the form of ethnographic writing following one or more periods of fieldwork. Typically, ethnographies aim for a broad assessment of the processes and contexts through and within which music is imagined, discussed and made. Ethnography may be synthesised with a variety of analytical, historical and other methodologies, often entering into dialogue with other disciplinary areas such as music psychology, music education, historical musicology, performance studies, critical theory, dance, folklore and linguistics. The field is therefore characterised by its breadth in theory and method, its interdisciplinary nature and its global perspective.
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