| This study investigates the effects of symphonic music on its audience in a contemporary setting, so as to develop an ethical framework for concert programming practices. Rather than search for political statements within the musical fabric, as familiar streams of New Musicology often do, this study will use an Althusserian Marxist framework to interrogate the compositional mechanisms by which concert music either participates in or resists ideology. This document investigates Richard Strauss's Eine Alpensinfonie and Igor Stravinsky's Histoire du Soldat as examples of such participation or resistance, respectively. The ideological status of each work is discussed in terms of techniques of continuity and discontinuity. Althusserian analysis shows the participation of these techniques in the process of inscribing a contemporary audience into ideology. Ideological participation is then considered in ethical terms, investigating the ramifications for orchestral concert programming practices. |
