Benjamin Korstvedt, assistant professor of Music, has published Listening for Utopia in Ernst Bloch’s Musical Philosophy, which explores the musical thought of the German philosopher and theorist Ernst Bloch (1885-1977). The book will be available from Cambridge University Press in August.
The first half of the book is a detailed study of Bloch’s musical philosophy that extracts crucial concepts from his writings, situates them within his conceptual system and the larger field of German critical theory of the early twentieth century. The second half of the book consists of four critical essays. The first of these essays considers the meaningful presence of what Bloch referred to as “animal lyricism” in Wagner’s Ring cycle; the second addresses the conceptual significance of the scene with the three Armored Men in Mozart’s The Magic Flute; the third explores the conditions of authenticity in the late nineteenth-century symphony; the fourth is an epilogue that reflects on the theological side of Bloch’s musical sensibility. Each essay takes up a fragment from Bloch, deciphers it through contextual and close reading, and then develops into an original work of criticism that ranges quite widely beyond its starting point.
Korstvedt said, “The book is a labor of love and even more a product of intellectual passion. Ernst Bloch was an important German philosopher and cultural critic for much of the twentieth century. His writings address an immense range of topics from religion to epistemology to politics and art. Music was always a particular interest of his, but his musical ideas have not had significant impact on English-language musical scholarship and criticism. When I discovered Bloch’s writings on music I found myself puzzled, provoked, and fascinated. As I went deeper and deeper into them, I discovered an extraordinary field in which to think, through music, about a whole set of issues with which I have a deep and complex relationship, personally as well as intellectually, including Christianity, Gnosticism, existentialism, Marxist analysis, and critical theory.”
“Bloch’s writing and his philosophy are difficult and often cryptic.,” he continued. “Simply fathoming what he is saying, let alone explaining, was my first challenge. The real fascination of the project, though. came in the next phase of the book, in applying Bloch’s ideas to musical works. Here I work to develop, almost as one develops photographic film, ways of hearing Bloch’s musical perceptions that connects his ideas with the music he discusses. At times, I range quite far from Bloch’s own word, but I was always concerned to remain trueto his ideas even as I ventured beyond them. In the process, I learned a great deal about music, about the value of philosophy for life, and about myself.
“Part of what is so exciting about Bloch’s philosophy of music is that is brilliant exercise in finding the connections of the past not simply to the present, but to the future,” Prof. Korstvedt said. “It is a philosophy that is open to what shall come. In fact, Bloch’s entire project rest on the faith that we must always do what we can to serve the best possibilities of the future.”
Korstvedt graduated summa cum laude from Clark University in 1987 with a B.A. in Music and received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1995. He joined the Clark faculty in 2002. He has served as Chair of the Department of Visual and Performing Arts and as Program Director for Music. In 2008, he was appointed George N. and Selma U. Jeppson Professor of Music. He is also affiliated with the program in Communication and Culture. Before coming to Clark, Professor Korstvedt served on the faculties of the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota and the University of Iowa.
