KOLLOQUIUM MUSIKTHEORIE / MUSIC THEORY COLLOQUIA
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Ass.-Prof. Dr. Nathan J. Martin (University of Michigan, USA):
"Rameau's 'Sensationalist Conversion' Revisited"
In his foundational 1993 study, Thomas Christensen suggested that Rameau's Démonstration du principe de l'harmonie (1750) marks a shift away from the scientistic rhetoric of the Génération harmonique (1737). This shift towards Lockean philosophical psychology is the "sensationalist conversion" of my title. Building on the foundation laid by Jacobi and Christensen, as well as more recent archival work by Nancy Diguerher (2014; Bouissou 2018), I propose to revisit and, in some respects, to qualify Christensen's assessment. My presentation will move between archival sources and broader intellectual history in order to emphasize (1) that the specific psychological theory in play is more properly Condillac's than Locke's; and (2) that this effort of "psychologizing" Rameau's theory is an innovation essentially due to the philosophes.
Nathan John Martin is associate professor of music theory at the University of Michigan. His research interests are in the history of music theory and the theory and practice of musical analysis. He has published widely on these topics in journals such as Music Theory Spectrum, Music Analysis, Music Theory Online, Music Theory & Analysis, and the Journal of Music Theory. In 2014, his article "Rameau's Changing Views on Supposition and Suspension" won the Society for Music Theory's outstanding publication award. During the 2018-2019 academic year, he held the Edward T. Cone membership in music at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton. In the summer of 2023, he was a visiting researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt am Main. During the coming (2025-2026) academic year, he will be in residence at the Warburg Institute in London and the Villa i Tatti in Florence.
The evenings are moderated by Prof. Dr. Jan Philipp Sprick and Roberta Vidic, who both teach in the Music Theory Department at the Hamburg University of Music and Theater.
Eintritt frei
Free admission
Contact and Zoom sign-up: roberta.vidic@hfmt-hamburg.de
Overview:
19.5.: Dr. Alexander Jakobidze-Gitman
26.5.: Prof. Dr. Bella Brover-Lubovsky
23.6.: Ass.-Prof. Dr. Nathan J. Martin