Intersections between subjects and objects in my compositions from 2013 to 2016

• Main Author: Flanagan, Beavan
• Other Authors: Cassidy, Aaron
• Published: University of Huddersfield 2017
• Subjects: M Music
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.732930

The following commentary details aspects of my recent compositions attempting to bring about intersections between subjects and objects. I demonstrate how my compositions highlight an interplay between the poles of subjectivity vs objectivity, human vs nonhuman and nature vs culture. Various musical precedents rooted in objectivity form the basis of this endeavour, such as the inaudible cosmic vibrations proposed by the Pythagoreans' Musica universalis, the chance procedures of mid twentieth-century experimental music, and the Platonic forms of Tom Johnson. However, although these standpoints do attempt to broaden the scope of music beyond the human sphere, they remain most often framed by transcendent discourse without explicitly addressing the subjective implications of such work. I propose an approach to composition that distances itself from a transcendental perspective, instead choosing to highlight the effects that objectivity elicits in human beings, while maintaining the presence of an external reality that remains inscrutable. Thus, my portfolio addresses the precise ways in which subjectivity remains present even within an objective musical discourse, whether through exploring psychological responses to chance, the existential boredom brought on by unchanging forms, subjective reactions to the objecti�cation of the human body, and the input of the imagination in the face of withdrawn or speculative musical objects.