Jean-Jacques Nattiez will present the 1996 Charles Seeger Lecture at the
41st Annual Meeting of the Society in Toronto. Born in Amiens (France)
in 1945, where he received his initial musical training, Nattiez first
completed graduate degrees in modern languages and linguistics. His
doctorate for the Université de Paris on musical semiology formed the
basis for his widely influential books in this field. Since 1970, he has
taught at the Université de Montréal.
Jean-Jacques Nattiez
defines his main scholarly purpose as the "redefinition of the aims and
methods of musicology within the general framework of semiology,” the
field in which he is clearly a forerunner (e.g., Fondements d’une sémiologie de la musique (1975) and Music and Discourse
(1990). In this context, he has always emphasized the paramount
importance of ethnomusicology, following Charles Seeger in favouring the
unity of musicology. Many of his copious analytical and historical
studies have focused on Wagner (e.g., Tétralogies: Wagner, Boulez, Chéreau, 1983 and Wagner androgyne
1990, English translation 1993), Debussy, Varèse and Boulez (with whom
he has collaborated in the production of the important series
"Musique/passé/present” and whose writing he has edited in Points de repère, 1981, Jalons (pour une décennie), 1989, and Correspondance
[Boulez – Cage], 1990). In addition, however, he has devoted a large
part of his research to Inuit music, mainly the throat-games, for the
study of which he animated the Groupe de Recherches en Sémiologie
Musicale at the Université de Montréal (1974-80). In 1978, he expanded
his investigations to Ainu Music (Japan) and in 1994, to the
throat-songs of the Tchuktchi in Siberia.
Among the many articles
and recordings resulting from his field work in Canada and Japan,
several of the records have been highly acclaimed. The first, Chants et jeux des Inuit,
initially published by UNESCO, was awarded the highly esteemed prize in
France, "Grand prix international du disque de l’Académie
Charles-Cros,” and contributed to international awareness of this aspect
of Inuit music culture. He was awarded this prize a second time for his
reedition of the "Collection universelle de musique populaire
enregistrée,” established by Constantin Brailoiu in the fifties for
UNESCO—a piece of the history of ethnomusicology comparable to the
Hornbostel Demonstration Collection.
His involvement in sound
documentation led him to propose a technological innovation of
particular significance for ethnomusicology. Aware of the recordings of
Inuit vocal games different from those accessible to the larger public,
he produced a compact disc (published by French Radio) compiling
collections of his own and five colleagues. The question arose as to the
criteria for organizing the 90 short pieces. Nattiez enlisted the help
of an electro-acoustic composer in his effort to offer a musical product
that would satisfy listeners on the European and American markets
without altering any of the material, while, at the same time, offering
various listening routes (via generic type, village of origin, related
texts, etc.) through the compact discs, routes which respect different
enthographic relationships among the games. Furthermore, users are
invited to "compose” their own disc of Inuit games. As Anthony Seeger
stated in his Yearbook of Traditional Music review of this disc (1991:156):
"There
is no question of the ethnographic value of the project, or of the
years of scholarship Jean-Jacques Nattiez brings to this disc along with
his recordings and those of several of his colleagues. But quite beyond
its usefulness as a research publication, this compact disc is a very
suggestive project for future music publications. Its lesson for
ethnomusicologists thinking about producing field recordings is that we
should not think of a CD as a compact LP vinyl disc, but rather as the
beginning of creative new ways of presenting sounds to various audiences
simultaneously—including the general public, members of a local
community and research scholars—all in the same package.”
His
third Inuit record, published by the Museum für Völkerkunde in Berlin,
is mainly devoted to the drum dances of the Iglulik Inuit of Canada.
Jean-Jacques
Nattiez has consistently aimed to ground his theoretical concept of
music semiology in empirical data and this aim will be evident in his
Charles Seeger Lecture. Recently, he has been involved in new research
in Uganda: he intends to demonstrate how the musical units and
syntactical rules obtained via paradigmatic analytical techniques may be
connected with semantic and choreographic features in order to
facilitate cultural interpretation.
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