Some Sadomasochistic Aspects of Musical Pleasure Author(s): Reinhold Friedl Source: Leonardo Music Journal, Vol. 12, Pleasure (2002), pp. 29-30 Published by: The MIT Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1513345 Accessed: 02-05-2017 14:06 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
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Some Sadomasochistic Aspects of Musical Pleasure Reinhold Friedl
ABSTRACT
The author posits t
dynamic of sadomaso pleasure is at work in
rary music. The rise b
compositions that equ technical instructions
perhaps impossible re
be found in his sociology of music, ments upon performe I t is quite well known that music, and especially wherein his categorization of dif-seen to make the act contemporary or so-called New Music, is not pure pleasure-
types of listeners develops apleasure in their exec pure pleasure being comparable to relaxing in a warm ferent bathtub. form of masochism. T To simplify: the "best" lisThe idea of interpreting music as a reflection of thehierarchy. whole ences of increasingly i tener is the one who is able to per-alized musical styles world, or even a single musical piece as creating a whole "muwhole musical structure of said to enjoy a similar sical cosmos" (an often-used topos in critiques), is a ceive verythe old idea that can be found all the way back in the ancient a composition Greek while listening to it. ship to performance. A more physical "noise ideal of music as a reflection of the harmonic order of the This is clearly an intellectual, not a
macrocosmos. But even in the Greek philosophy of music physical a pleasure. The second verdict was formulated after World War massive problem occurred in the form of the Pythagorean limma: that is, a mathematically consistent tuning bringing II: that toit is impossible to write a poem after Auschwitz. The latter gether pure fifths and pure octaves does not exist. (A pitch idea seven octaves higher than a given note is not the same as has the been applied directly pitch twelve fifths higher; the difference between the to contemporary fremusic on a vast [3]. quencies of the two resulting notes is the limma [orscale "rem-
intended effect is ofte
auditory pleasure but s
ing. The author recou number of sources in
discussion, from Freud
Nietzsche, Adorno, Sc and Stockhausen.
nant"] [1]). So music was treated even then as an imperfect "Critical theory" has held that the
music of the future will have to be copy of the perfect order of the macrocosmos. To focus on another point, the functional harmonicchange strucsociety. Political categories (e.g. in serial music, where each val ture of European music is based on two main psychological tensions: the dominant, producing a tension to revertsame to the number of occurrences) or "e
tonic, and the subdominant, inducing the feeling of sonance) leaving have not only been applie the tonic. I do not want to pursue here the question but of thealso have been given frequently a tic value of a composition or a comp pleasure of listening to different "stories" of leaving and coming back to a harmonic basis. Ijust want to emphasize the music fact has not only tried to become that the pleasure of listening to that kind of music requires but has also tried to temper physic the capacity to follow harmonic tensions and even be misled One dream, formulated by the vet sometimes, e.g. due to a fallacy or false cadence (trugschlufl). music, was to phase out the human The problem of the relationship between pleasure and ten- or her completely with electron him sion was an issue for Sigmund Freud, the German term positions. Lust It is ajoke of history that having a double meaning. Lust is not only the pleasurethe of recomposer as a dictator was then leasing a certain drive-energy-e.g. as during an orgasm-but back door. The pleasure of the listen also the pleasure of the building up of energy, e.g. sexual exunderstanding the structure of the citement, tension. Thus, the first approach, that pleasure is al- interpreter was reduced to play the ways connected to the release of drive-energy, e.g. in form of right time, his or her role becoming an orgasm, cannot be upheld. The occurrence of pleasure of in a bank employee. building up a drive-energy introduced a theoretical problem. As a very recognizable effect of th That is, the simple idea of drive-energy or the "axiomatic sysaudience withdrew. Conservative or p tem" of the family of drives had to be changed to include it the still wanted poems after Auschw so-called death urge [2]. terpreter came into being: the new-m
With this in mind, music can induce very different pleasures. of scientific specialist. Interestingly, Using an up-to-date and pragmatic categorization of musics, tory, a definite separation betwee there is "listening music," "dance music" and "chill-out preter-between music." the "thinker" and Because the last two can be considered functional types of This music, development created a new type I want to focus on the listening music (chill-out music called can be principle of the unprovable w treated as the "bathtub pleasure" I mentioned above). The question remains, what kind of Returning to contemporary music and pleasure, we would should an interpreter experience fr remember two verdicts, handed down by Adorno. The first can music? This work is clearly reduce to music, the mere execution, pre Reinhold Friedl (composer, musician), Graefstr. 5, D-10967 Berlin, Germany. E-mail: structures. Two possibilities result: (
. a technician who does not know and
? 2002 ISAST
LEONARDO MUSICJOURNAL, Vol
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sure or (2) he or she finds a certain plea-
Alien 8 recordings are listed at . of suffering from the performance. 6. Nietzsche's first book was published in 1872: The sense of the classic slave role. If this role To return to the relation between pleaBirth of Tragedy, Out of the Spirit of Music (Die Geburt is combined with pleasure, it turns out tosure and tension-which is probably one der Trag6die aus dem Geiste der Musik). A listing of
sure in merely obeying orders, in the
be a classic example of a sadomasochis-of the most interesting questions in aes-Nietzsche's writings is available at .
tic structure.
thetics and one of the points Merzbow fo7. More information about Schumann's life and inTo be motivated to perform in this way,cuses on: If tension always includes a kind jury to his hand (somewhat varied accounts) are one would need to take pleasure in it, butof "pain" (e.g. in a composition of Vienna available at:
mann/biography.htm>; ; . response. If the interpreter performs inis felt as pleasure, then this can be looked 8. Stockhausen's comments came at the end of a front of an audience, he or she can also at as a definite sadomasochistic pleasure. press conference in which Stockhausen was quessatisfy his/her sadistic tendencies, as pos-At least this would be very compatible tioned about his works and his beliefs in the works of St. Michael and Lucifer. Stockhausen stated that itive pleasure would be forbidden for thewith the old Greek theory of catharsis, of he believes Lucifer was present in September 2001 audience too. Freud probably would usesuffering through a drama until a soluin New York, which led to a reporter questioning the term "moral masochism" for this beStockhausen further. tion. But in order not to be too provocahavior: taking the role of the victim with-tive, I would like to point out that the The original statement (responding to a reporter's query to Stockhausen's about his notes to his work out having sexual pleasure [4]. This,difference emphasized by Nietzsche is Hymnen in relation to the 11 September events) was perhaps in addition to theatrically un-that this suffering is not a true physical as follows: derlining the seriousness of the work,suffering or pain, but a compassion [6]. Hm. Also was da geschehen ist, ist natiirlich-jetzt could be a reason for the longstanding In order not to finish without proving muisen Sie alle Ihr Gehirn umstellen-das grolte Kunstwerk, was esje gegeben hat. DaB also Geister in fashion among new-music interpreters ofthat I do not speak of nonexistent pheeinem Akt etwas vollbringen, was wir in der Musik nie nomena, I would like to mention how dressing only in black. traumen k6nnten, daB Leute zehnJahre iiben wie verriickt, total fanatisch, fur ein Konzert. Und dann This theory would make the under- Schumann's fourth finger on his right sterben. [Zogert.] Und das ist das gr6ote Kunstwerk, standing of some new-complexity com-hand became crippled because he tied it das es iberhaupt gibt fir den ganzen Kosmos. Stellen positions possible, exaggerating theup to improve his playing [7]. I also wishSie sich das doch vor, was da passiert ist. Das sind also Leute, die sind so konzentriert aufdieses eine auf die technical difficulties of their scores to the briefly to recall Karlheinz Stockhausen's eine Auffiihrung, und dann werden fiinftausend point where they are impossible for any concept of interpreters, which emerged Leute in die Auferstehung gejagt.... interpreter to play. The interpreter hasin his statements about the events of 11 A transcription of the Stockhausen press conference to work so hard onstage, trying to realizeSeptember 2001 in New York. Stockwas published in "'Huuuh!' Das Pressegesprach am the impossible, that his ever-losing fighthausen discusses the lengthy preparation16 September 2001 im Senatszimmer des Hotel Atlantic in Hamburg," MusikTexte91 (2001) pp. 69-77. against the given structure gains a verymade by the terrorists, comparing it to the This document is available online at . A discussion emotional dimension: Sisyphus onstage,idea of musicians practicing fanatically for of the controversy surrounding Stockhausen's stateperforming his masochistic pleasure, 10 years for a single concert and then ments and the manner in which they were reported only to fail every time. dying during the "performance" [8]. in the press appears on the Stockhausen web site at . But leaving aside this provocative argument, there are also some musiciansReferences and Notes who introduced in the 1980s a very hard 1. The pitch seven octaves higher than a given note and very physical "noise music." One of and the pitch twelve fifths higher than the same given their important protagonists is Masaminote are actually of two slightly different frequenManuscript received 15 January 2002. cies-that is, 1/27 does not equal 1/312 The differAkita (a.k.a. Merzbow)-who told me inence between the two frequencies is called the
a discussion that he believes that all music Pythagorean limma. is a sadomasochistic act. Somehow he has turned the above-described situation of
2. In his drive-reduction theory Freud proposed "that ReinholdFriedl is a Berlin-based performer, inearly interactions set the pattern for later personal-
ity and social development. He suggested that peoterpreter and composer who studied piano with
the contemporary music interpreter ple are motivated by biological arousal such as hunger that lead us upside-down: in his concerts he uses noise levels of over 110 dB, well past
drives (statesRenate of Werner, Alan Marks and Alexander
to obtain the prevon requisites for survival). When one of these drives is Schlippenbach and also studied mathethe aroused, we seek to satisfy the related need. Thematics rein Stuttgart and Berlin. He has received
pain threshold of the listeners. So heduction of the drive produces feelings of pleasure fellowships from, among others, the Berlin and we return to a comfortable state of biological makes the sadomasochistic relationship Academy of Arts and STEIM in Amsterdam equilibrium. Thus he proposed that pleasure seekbetween audience and performer quite and has published articles in newpapers and ing is a basic principle of existence." See
rects the ensembles Piano-Inside-Out and sounds really "touch" the listener [5].Attachment%20Lecture%20-%202001.htm>;J. La-
planche andJ.B. Pontalis, Das Vokabular Der Psychozeitkratze. As pianist and composer, he has (Frankfurt am Main, 1973).
But Akita is even convinced that every analyse
worked with musicians and composers such as musical performance onstage is a sado-3. Theodor W. Adorno, Einleitung in die MusiksoziLee Rinaldo of Sonic Youth, PhillNiblock, Helologie (Frankfurt am Main, 1978). masochistic act, as it is based on a game mut Oehring, Nicolas Collins, Lou Reed, 4. Laplanche and Pontalis [2] p. 305. of power between the performer and the Merzbow (a.k.a. Masami Akita), Radu Mal5. Interviews with Masami Akita (a.k.a. Merzbow) are audience. However, the agreement befatti, Bernhard Guenter and Mario Bertoncini available at . tween the audience and the performer, (nuova consonanza) and has made countless Discography and other information at
www.hut.fi/-omertalo/Merzbow.html>. Merzbow's which defines the roles of activity and pas-
radio and CD recordings.
30 Friedl, Some Sadomasochistic Aspects of Musical Pleasure
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