Before Their Ears and Minds: Sublation in the Musical Praxis of José Maceda and Mathias Spahlinger

Abstract

The objective of this article is to construct an analytic framework for new music based on Hegel’s dialectics and focusing on José Maceda’s Music for Gongs and Bamboo (1997) and Mathias Spahlinger’s Gegen Unendlich (1995). This unlikely opposition between two important composers, José Maceda (1917–2004) from the Philippines and Mathias Spahlinger (b. 1944) from Germany, becomes an entry point into discussing the nature of the dialectical process in Hegelian thought, which is rooted in the principle of sublation (German aufheben or aufhebung). Music is seen as a potent human endeavour that underscores sublation when musical works are experienced and the transformations of musical material emerge in the ears and the minds of the listeners. It is for this assumption that the matter of perception pervades through the analysis and the discussions in the paper. Examining the unique compositional processes in both works demonstrates how sublation is a most effective tool in the understanding of the praxis and the composer’s mind-work, especially in both cases where each uniquely challenges the Western traditional harmonic gestalt.