Department of English, NCCU

Lecturer: Feng-Shu Lee (Assistant Professor of Institute of Music, National   Chiao Tung University )

Topic:  Mimesis or Abstraction?: Word and Music in Nineteenth-Century German Music Aesthetics

Time: December 15 (Tue.) 14:10~17:00

Venue: Yi-Xian Bldg. 050202

Abstract: The idea of obscurity in poetry played a crucial role in English Romantics’ discussion of the sublime. A similar concern occurred in nineteenth-century German music aesthetics, in which the acceptance or resistance of music’s mimetic function was a vantage point for composers as well as their audiences. In this talk, we will explore music’s relationship with language in nineteenth-century German culture, using the prose writings of E. T. A. Hoffmann and Eduard Hanslick and the instrumental music by Beethoven and Mendelssohn as examples. These works illustrate the degree to which music could or would afford to be obscure, why that situation might work to music’s advantage from an aesthetic standpoint, and the grey zone between mimetic music and abstract music. 

Bio: Feng-Shu Lee is assistant professor of musicology at National Chiao Tung University (Hsinchu, Taiwan). She received her Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in violin performance, as well as a Master’s Degree in musicology, from the New England Conservatory (Boston, MA). She received her Ph.D. in music from the University of Chicago. Her research interests include opera history, improvisation in 18th- and 19th-century keyboard music, the relationship between Romantic music, German philosophy, and theology; as well as music, optical science, philosophy, literature, and fine arts in 19th-century Europe.