Music and Dance Theses and Dissertations

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Mind, Body, and Time: A Bergsonian Theory of Musical Impressionism
(University of Oregon, 2024-08-07) Bopp, Emily; Fine, Abigail
Traditional style histories of midcentury musicology tend to reduce Musical Impressionism to color, light, and debussyste conventions, over-emphasizing visuality and limiting its purview to a scant few composers. To expand our understanding of atmospheric effects in French Musical Impressionism, I trace an alternative intellectual history through the music criticism of the period, which reveals philosophical sensibilities that recontextualize the significance of Impressionist music as more than mere sensation. More specifically, prominent music critics engaged with nascent perception theories and the process philosophy of Henri Bergson as Impressionism gained traction, finding this music to be an ample opportunity for reconfiguring the senses; that is, our sensory perception, sense of Self, and sense of time. Accordingly, I propose a new frame for Musical Impressionism, in which the composers aim not solely to create an atmosphere, but to render time indistinct for the listener as a means of reunifying mind and body.