Contemporary Slovene Compositional Practice and Musicology

Abstract

In this article, the author gives a schematic survey of current methodology in musicology and of synchronous compositional practice with special regard to Slovene creativity. In the process, numerous philosophical parallels come to the fore: both contemporary musicology and composition have been marked by postmodernistic defocusing, coexistence of disparaties, and pluralism. In the foreground, there is not only one methodological paradigm, so that emphasis is being transferred from methodology to the subject under consideration, while the epistemological hierarchy has been shattered. Correspondingly, in composition, the composer's metier has fallen apart, since today no one can master the entire compositional arsenal, so that ties between thinking on music (musicology) and musical thinking (composition) have become ever more important. Subsequently, the author analyses composers' utterances in concert notes, seeking verbal remnants of their musical thinking. A survey of such records reveals various levels of reflection, ranging from accidental, tautological utterances, explaining the circumstances that brought about the initial idea for a new composition, or its poetic programme, to analytical cross sections of individual works, as well as presentations of compositional and structural problems. Thus, composers, that follow modernistic trends, pay more attention to thought on music, and live in close touch with musicological deconstruction of contemporary creativeness, whereas the endeavours of those composers who relate their work to postmodernism appear to be less reflected. Quantitatively, the latter group of composers is prevalent, hence the loose connectedness between Slovene compositional practice and musicology.