The Concept of Compositional Model

Doctoral Dissertation (Doktor der Künste)
Luc Döbereiner, 2013
University of Music and Performing Arts Graz

Abstract

Musical composition is constituted in the productive contradiction between sound and its idea. The present thesis explores the relation of sound and its description or idea in musical composition as a mode of thought. In doing so, the compositional model names the immanently musical concept of this relation or non-relation, which is produced and thought in compositional practice. Hence, compositional models are situated in the intersection of the intelligible and the sensible. This thesis does not aim at producing a unifying and concluding definition of the concept of compositional model, but tries to capture this concept in a series of dierent constellations. Despite of their irreconcilability, these dierent conceptual approaches share an anti-representational orientation. Methodologically, this artistic research project consists of an artistic approach to its object in compositional practice, the technological development of sound synthesis models, and the theoretical-reflective development of the concept of compositional model through the works of other composers (Richard Barrett, Agostino Di Scipio, Helmut Lachenmann, Edgard Varèse, Iannis Xenakis). These theoretical developments are essentially carried out as “encounters” of musical thought and philosophical thought (Theodor W. Adorno, Alain Badiou, Gilles Deleuze). By means of these encounters, a series of formulations of the concept of compositional model is created. The compositional model is presented as virtual compositional space (Varèse-Deleuze), as rhizomatic map of an instrument as a body (Barrett-Deleuze), as sound structure, which lets the qualitatively incommensurable appear in musical form (Lachenmann-Adorno), as unconscious synchronic structure (Xenakis-Lacan). The artistic approach of the object of this project is worked out in two sound installations, two work for ensemble, and three compositions for smaller instrumentations.