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Twenty Second Annual Darwin College Lecture Series 2007

IDENTITY

Lecture 1   :   19 January

MUSICAL IDENTITY

Christopher Hogwood

Cambridge

Biography  |   Abstract   |   Printable Version  

Abstract

What are Brahms? If music has an identity, does anyone other than the composer know it? Is any knowledge or training necessary for us to appreciate the "identity" of a musical work? Individuals and societies use music to define their own identities, but does music itself offer anything more than a construct of freely interpretable parameters? What is a Beethoven quartet? the score? the memory? a composite of performances? Christopher Hogwood will consider the implications of education, interpretation (including the "authenticists"), concepts of "style" in both written and improvised musics, fakes, arrangements, familiarity and religion, and also comment on the work of musicology in identifying the 'DNA' of composers, its place in the defining of anonymous works, attempts to create computer-music and the "myth" of the compositional paradigm.

The lectures are given at 5.30 p.m. in The Lady Mitchell Hall, Sidgwick Avenue, with an adjacent overflow theatre with live TV coverage. Each lecture is typically attended by 600 people so you must arrive early to ensure a place.