Readings for Next Week

1
Readings for Next Week

• Readings can be found online at
• http//www-personal.umich.edu/lundyj/
• Tuesdays Class
• Sharon Hays, Structure and Agency and the Sticky
  Problem of Culture, Whole Article
• William Sewell, A theory of structure duality,
  agency and transformation, pp. 1-21
• Thursdays Class
• Ann Swidler, Culture in Action Symbols and
  Strategies Whole Article
• Eliasoph and Lichtermann, Culture in
  Interaction pp. 735-756, 782-784

2
The Sociology of Culture

• Art and Society Reception

3
Some Definitions for Next Week

• Agency The power of individual people to make
  choices on their own.
• Structure The power of human relationships to
  determine the life of individuals.
• Culture The mental or cognitive components of
  individuals and structures.

4
The Sistine Chapel (Pre-Restoration)
5
The Sistine Chapel (Post-Restoration)
6
Ancient Roman Sculpture Revised
7
Arvo Pärt

• The Paradoxes
• Pärts music is avant-garde, but unlike other
  avant-garde composers, he is well liked by the
  general public

8
Critics on Pärt

• the sound of angels' wings
• He enchants by the spirit
• His impulse toward simplicity and toward a music
  which expressed his deep spirituality guided him
  in developing a powerfully affecting style of
  composition

9
Critics on Other New Music

• didactic thinly inspired
• a postmodern age of triviality and camp
• serialism and chance music had something else
  in common neither system "worked

10
Underlying Scheme for Pärts Magnificat
11
Pierre Boulezs Structures 1A
12
Arvo Pärts Magnificat
13
Arvo Pärt

• The Paradoxes
• Pärts music is avant-garde, but unlike other
  avant-garde composers, he is well liked by the
  general public
• He writes music that is studied in universities
  as art music, but at the same time, he has made
  relatively large profits selling his CDs.

14
Pärts Credentials

• High Art
• 4 Honorary Degrees from Universities
• 3 Honorary Memberships in Ceremonial Academies
• Numerous Composition Awards in Multiple Countries
• Pop Art
• Nominated 5 Times for a Grammy Award
• Soundtrack to Many Films (including Fahrenheit
  9/11, and 2003 Oscar Winner Les Invasions
  Barbares)
• One Album (De Profundis) Sold 80,000 Copies
  Worldwide

15
Long-Term vs. Short-Term Production

• Comparative sales growth of three different
  books published by Editions de Minuit

16
Pärts Triodion
17
Morton Feldmans Intersection 3
18
Pärt as Estonian Monk
19
Music Critic on Pärt and Estonia

• The sun shines just as brightly and just as
  often in Estonia as anywhere else, but such is
  the power of musical impressions that many in the
  West will imagine it a monochrome land of somber
  people praying in penitentially drafty churches.

20
Interview with Pärt

• I.R. What do you think has changed in your
  creative process? Say, technically as well as in
  content?
• A.P. (makes some obscure movements in the air
  with his hand) Well, that way...
• E.P. What is "that way"? But maybe you don't
  start writing at all but dancing instead. Tell me
  "that way" is? What sound it is?
• A.P. What sound?
• E.P. What colour does this sound have?
• A.P. Blue.
• E.P. Good, we reached somewhere at last. Does it
  fly or jump or walk?
• A.P. The sun is shining there, but we don't see
  the sun.

21
Pärt and Conservatism

• Not a day goes by, it begins to seem, not a
  blessed day, without a new recording of new music
  steeped in devotion.
• -- Matthew Gurewitsch, A Search for
  Spirituality Is the Stuff of New Disks, New York
  Times (1999).