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International Symposium on Computer Music Multidisciplinary Research

CMMR 2015: Music, Mind, and Embodiment pp 420–437Cite as

‘Understood at Last’?: A Memetic Analysis of Beethoven’s ‘Bloody Fist’

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 9617))

Abstract

As a singular moment in the western canon, the opening of the recapitulation in the first movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony has prompted a variety of structural and expressive readings. This paper explores its intertextual connections with Mozart’s Don Giovanni from a memetic perspective, outlining certain extra-musical interpretations, including some related to Susan McClary’s controversial reading of the passage, one might infer from the strong musical connections.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    High-resolution versions of the examples and figures in this paper are available at https://hud.academia.edu/StevenJan.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Huddersfield, Queensgate, Huddesfield, HD1 3DH, UK

    Steven Jan

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  1. Steven Jan
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Correspondence to Steven Jan .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. CNRS - LMA, Marseille Cedex 20, France

    Richard Kronland-Martinet

  2. CNRS - LMA, Marseille, France

    Mitsuko Aramaki

  3. CNRS - LMA, Marseille, France

    Sølvi Ystad

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Jan, S. (2016). ‘Understood at Last’?: A Memetic Analysis of Beethoven’s ‘Bloody Fist’. In: Kronland-Martinet, R., Aramaki, M., Ystad, S. (eds) Music, Mind, and Embodiment. CMMR 2015. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9617. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46282-0_27

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46282-0_27

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-46281-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-46282-0

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