Dissertation Index
Author: Webber, Miriam B. Title: Analysis as Dialogue: Bakhtinian Theory and the Music of Dmitri Shostakovich Institution: University of Kansas Begun: August 2013 Completed: April 2021 Abstract: Although recent scholarship has begun to consider the writings of Mikhail Bakhtin in connection with the music of Dmitri Shostakovich, little of the published work to date addresses the two with regard to the topic of musical narratology. The present study examines various ways in which Bakhtin’s literary thought might be applied to Shostakovich’s music, addressing a range of established music-theoretical methodologies located within the broader context of Bakhtinian narrative theory. My analytical approach is consequently multifaceted and engages multiple musical parameters, including pitch organization, rhythm, form, topical content, and emotional valence. In particular, five key terms deriving from Bakhtin’s critical writings form the template in relation to which Shostakovich’s approach to the act of musical narration may be codified: carnival, chronotope, heteroglossia, polyphony, and novelization. Several songs are presented as preliminary case studies that together provide a framework for the interpretation of individual scenes from The Nose and Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District, as well as aspects of the purely instrumental symphonic repertoire. Issues such as nonclosure are deemed neither to be problematic nor to require any extrinsic accounting for and are instead taken to be wholly Bakhtinian in both conception and practice. Nor does the methodology adopted here seek to disclose any kind of immanent narrative subtext; rather, it argues for modes of musical comprehension shaped in conjunction with Bakhtinian narratological thought. Keywords: Shostakovich, music, analysis, Bakhtin, dialogism, carnival, heteroglossia, narrative TOC: List of Examples vii List of Figures ix Introduction 1 Engaging Bakhtin 5 Shostakovich and Analysis 7 Shostakovich and Narrative 17 Shostakovich and Bakhtin 23 Chapter 1. “Reflection of a Reflection”: First-Order Musical Discourse and Bakhtinian Dialogism 31 Terms 33 Carnival 33 Chronotope 34 Heteroglossia 36 Polyphony 38 Novelization 39 Bakhtin and Music 41 Methodology 42 Analysis: “Fragment,” from Four Monologues on Words by Pushkin (1952) 48 Text 48 Music 51 Chapter 2. Symphonizing the Word: Four Bakhtinian Case Studies 58 “The Donkey and the Nightingale,” from Two Fables by Krylov (1922) 58 Music 62 “Ballada,” from Two Romances on Words of Lermontov (1950) 72 Music 77 “Misunderstanding,” from Satires (Pictures of the Past) on Words by Sasha Chorny (1960) 84 Music 90 “Kreutzer Sonata,” from Satires (Pictures of the Past) on Words by Sasha Chorny (1960) 99 Music 103 Chapter 3. Re-Accentuating the Word: Translating Literature into Opera 112 Act 1, Scene 4, Kazan Cathedral Scene, from The Nose, op. 15 (1928) 115 Analysis 117 Act 1, Scene 2, Courtyard Scene, from Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District, op. 29 (1934) 133 Analysis 136 Chapter 4. Finalizing “Nothing”: Thematizing Mortality in Symphony no. 14 156 Questions of Harmony 158 Bakhtinian Approaches to Impermanence 161 Third Movement (“Lorelei”), from Symphony no. 14, op. 135 (1969) 163 Concluding Remarks 189 Chapter 5. Hedgehogs and Foxes: Pluralism in Symphony no. 9 190 Fourth and Fifth Movements from Symphony no. 9 (1945) 193 Narrative Archetypes 196 Analysis 201 Concluding Remarks 218 Appendix A. Musical Example Texts and English Translations 220 Appendix B. Copyright and Reprinting Permissions 235 Bibliography 237 Contact: miriambrack@gmail.com |