Niksa Gligo --> bio
Music Notation - Music graphics
Western European notions of music have become so paradigmatically dependent on notation that to some twentieth-century authors (e.g. Nelson Goodman) the category of nationality is an ideal he fully equates to that of musicality; a notational record not notationality enough is a dubious point of departure for the music it represents! However, the design of notation has always counted on its own special efficancy in the transfer of writing into sound, that is, music. Let us set the following parameters: Baude Cordier's heart shaped canon Bell Bonne (circa 1400) suggests the direction of reading; the Mondrianesque abstraction of Earl Brown's layout for December 52 (1952) indicates a suggestion of the relationship between the sound on a horizontal axis of time, proportionally matching the spatial relationships between particular sound symbols on the sheet; the graphic representation of Tom Johnson's Imaginary Music (1974) renders concrete the associations evoked by the musically relevant titles of the compositions; the of 'a score for listening to' Gyorgy Ligeti's 1958 electronic composition Articulation, published by Rainer Wehinger, is intended to help the listener find his/her way around this particularly complex piece of music.
However there is no doubt that some of these exhibits suggest
the possibility of existing as works of visual art, as an independent
source of pure visual delight with no obligation - as a record
of notational-musical intent - to be realised in sound. The problem
of the emancipation of notation from its realisation should be
considered in respect of the following viewpoints:
a) In his celebrated interview with Roger Reynolds from 1962,
John Cage claimed that composition, performance and audial perception
have nothing in common. Later, on various occasions, he developed
this view, propagating the ever greater independence of the written
notation from the composer's intentions, that is the greater independence
of the performance from the writing, the greater independence
of listening from composing and performing. Naturally, in this
case the terms composing/composition, performing/ performance
and listening have nothing in common with their traditional meanings.
b) Compositional intentions - in the traditional relationship
between composition, performance and perception - are recorded
with appropriate notational system can no longer adequately indicate
the composer's intentions, it is natural for the composer to seek
help by bringing in new signs. (therefore the history of our music
- as a history of the changes in our notation for musicality -
is also a history of the changes in the system of notation and
signs.) New sign system appearing a history mostly in the twentieth
century are categorised as graphic notation. Music graphics, however,
imply that the composers have abandoned the idea of indicating
their intentions by way of a written record at which point the
record - as musical design - is truly liberated from its obligation
of being rendered audial. (Maybe this is the result of the composers'
indirect admission that their intentions cannot be indicated by
any system of signs and notation in the sense of graphic notation!)
The exhibit in this show, each in its own way, document this situation,
regardless of how their' instructions for the realisation' make
them appear functionally dependent on their performance, or on
the music resulting from their reproduction in sound.
was born in 1946 in Split, Croatia. In 1969 he graduated Comparative
Literature and English Language and Literature at the University
of Humanistic Studies in Zagreb, Department of Philosophy, and
in 1973 Musicology at the University of Humanistic Studies in
Ljubljana, Slovenia, Department of Philosophy.
In 1981 he got a Masters Degree in Musicology at the Music Academy
in Zagreb, Croatia and in1984 PhD in Musicology at the University
of Humanistic Studies in Ljubljana.
Postgraduate studies in Cologne (DAAD scholarship), Salzburg
(Salzburg Seminar in American Studies), USA (Study travel by Invitation
of State Department), Berlin (DAAD scholarship), Freiburg and
Berlin (Alexander von Humbolt Scholarship).
From 1969 - 1986 he was director of the Music Salon at the Student
Centre of Zagreb University. From 1986 he is assistant professor,
and from 1993 professor at the Music Academy at Zagreb University,
Department of Musicology. From 1991 - 1993 he was also assistant
dean at the same Music Academy in Zagreb. From 1975 - 1991 he
was a secretary and/or director of International Festival of Contemporary
Music, Music Biennale in Zagreb. From 1989 - 1994 he was a member
of the European Conference for the Promotion of New Music. From
1992 he is a member of Croatian Directing Committee of Musicology
Society and member-associate of Croatian Academy of Arts and Science
(HAZU). From 1994 he is a member of the Executive Committee of
Semiotic Studies (IASS/AIS) and vice president of Department for
Semiotics at the Croatian Society for Social and Humanistic Science.
He is author and writer of many scientific publications in Croatia
and abroad.
In 1969 awarded by SKOJ for music criticism, in 1985 and 1987
awarded by Josip Andreis Prize from Croatian Composers Society.
In 1992 he was decorated as "Chevalier des Arts at des Letteres"
by the French Ministry of Culture.