Author Function in the Poetics of Contemporary Music

Abstract

The term “author function,” derived from the famous work of Michel Foucault What is an author?, is projected in this work on a number of works by contemporary composers in Russia and other countries. The theme of discussion is music: Sounding Letters by Alfred Schnittke, Clavier Music by J. S. Bach (The Zagny Collection) by Sergei Zagny, Bridges to Bach by Giya Kancheli, Quartet Fragmente-Stille, an Diotima by Luigi Nono and Anamorphosi by Salvatore Sciarrino. The problem of authorship is included in the mainstream of urgent issues associated with the study and interpretation of the meaning of contemporary musical compositions. In some of them, the composer’s figure is marked in the music itself, while in others, on the contrary, it marks its absence. Various diverse ways of functioning of the composer’s voice often arise in the intertextual space, which makes it possible to capture the distance between different works and composers’ styles. Our field of vision also includes the composer’s words dedicated to the problem of authorship.

Keywords: authorship, “author function,” Foucault, contemporary music, poetics, intertextuality, Sergei Zagny, Alfred Schnittke, Giya Kancheli, Luigi Nono, Salvatore Sciarrino