Book Review: Stefan Östersjö. Listening to the other

Abstract

In a way, the new book by Stefan Östersjö is not just a book. And in a way, it is not just by Stefan Östersjö. First, it isn’t just a book because the publication includes both the printed text and illustrations, and also several short video recordings and films that present some of Östersjö’s activities as a specialist in contemporary music, playing classical guitar and other plucked string instruments. These audiovisual materials are available online. But they should not be understood as merely supplemental examples supporting the main text. Unlike the examples of a typical companion website, these video recordings can stand on their own. It might even be possible to imagine the films as the principal contribution, with the text as an extended program note or artist’s statement. Either way, Östersjö suggests that they are equal parts of the publication (pp. 11, 165), and they enact a kind of cross-media dialogue. Second, the book isn’t just by Östersjö because all of these projects are essentially collaborative. He has co-created the music and films with composers, fellow performers, technicians, and directors. These artistic colleagues are often research colleagues too, and Östersjö has co-authored texts with several of them. Here another dialogue emerges between musical practice and theoretical reflection as Östersjö puts his performance projects into conversation with broader perspectives from musicology, cognitive science, and philosophy. This publication, then, invites us to listen to sounds and words by Östersjö and his collaborators—even to listen to them listening together. Listening to the Other examines listening in musical creation and performance. Yet Östersjö is also concerned with listening as a mode of thought (what he calls “thinking-in-listening”) and with the ethics and politics of listening. Can we truly listen to each other? How is listening facilitated by bodies, technologies, and culture? How is listening constrained? When does it fail? How might listening affect thoughts, attitudes, and relations? And how might listening transform a listener? The book pursues these questions through three central chapters, devoted to Östersjö’s performance-research projects. They are framed by more theoretical chapters, yet it is possible to start with these case studies. Chapter 3 examines performer–composer collaboration, and it also considers musical instruments as a kind of Other. More specifically, it discusses the development of Strandlines, a piece for classical guitar and electronics by the American composer Richard Karpen. As Östersjö explains, “Strandlines is a composition that has no notation but is also conceived not to be improvised” (p. 56). Instead, the composer and performer co-create a set of musical materials and a plan for their development in the piece. Here the composer resembles a record producer or artistic director, and composition resembles the practice of filmmakers, such as Mike Leigh, who develop scripts collaboratively with their actors (p. 83). For Strandlines, Karpen worked closely with Östersjö and the composer Joshua Parmenter, who programmed the code for live signal processing. Their work was documented on video, and in films by Adam Hogan. 983965 MSX0010.1177/1029864920983965Musicae ScientiaeBook Review book-review2021