Can music be critical? 

In “Traditional and Critical Theory”, Horkheimer explicates these two theoretical approaches through their relative relations to knowledge. While traditional theory positions knowledge as an oppositional other, which the theorist can clarify, understand and know from a rational, observational distance, critical theory sees knowledge as a dialectical other, in which the observer is always implicated: through theContinue reading “Can music be critical? “

Feeding the Empty Piano: dialectics of machine and human in Osborn’s “Schiller’s Piano”

Laurence Osborn’s new piano concerto, “Schiller’s Piano”, which I had the immense pleasure of hearing in its premiere performance by Zubin Kanga and the Manchester Collective on Thursday 10th October, gives a shocking musical account of the construction of a replica piano in a Nazi concentration camp. The true story which informs the piece relatesContinue reading “Feeding the Empty Piano: dialectics of machine and human in Osborn’s “Schiller’s Piano””