Musical Revolutions In German Culture

Musical Revolutions in German Culture explores the persistence of a critical-deconstructive philosophy toward musical production, consumption, and reception in Germany over the past two centuries. Drawing upon the cultural-revolutionary insights of Friedrich Schlegel, Walter Benjamin, Theodor W. Adorno, and Blixa Bargeld, this book investigates how radical musical discourses and practices engage sound as a powerful site of cultural creativity, critique, and resistance.

Intellectual historian Mirko M. Hall shows how music, when intentionally situated within certain counterhegemonic aesthetic practices, can decisively transform everyday consciousness in the service of human freedom. Review: Hall interweaves music, philosophy, and politics in this book in order to challenge the reader with the same 'hermeneutic inexhaustibility' that the author also verifies in the 'counterhegemonic possibilities of music.' By exploring the concepts of 'dialectical sonority' and 'dialectical listening,' even within the context of so-called 'lower art,' Hall provides a very original and pioneering contribution through his critical-deconstructive philosophy of music.

The subtitle, 'Musicking against the Grain,' not only depicts brilliantly the book's content, but also reflects the author's endeavor: thinking against the grain. - Mario Vieira de Carvalho, Professor Emeritus of Sociology of Music, Nova University of Lisbon, Portugal In four steps, spanning two centuries of German thought, Hall unlocks a fascinating genealogy of musicking, that broad spectrum of sonic phenomena ranging from listening to natural sounds and composing music to performing noise.

Focused on sound's power to engender critical self-reflection, Hall masterfully links the Frankfurt School with its romantic predecessors and post-punk disciples, revealing musicking's historical situatedness, its incorporation of past discourses, and its anticipation of future practices now so ubiquitous in our digital present. - Richard Langston, Associate Professor of German Literature, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA