Joris De Henau

University of Oxford, Department for Continuing Education, Tutor

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I work as Tutor in Music in the Department for Continuing Education and as an administrator, both at the University of Oxford, UK. My interests are in musicology and aesthetics.

I received my PhD in Musicology from the University of Durham; I also hold an MA from the University of Leuven, and an MPhil (DEA) from the Sorbonne.
Supervisors: Prof Max Paddison (Durham), Prof Marc Battier (Sorbonne), Prof Mark Delaere (Leuven)
Address: Music School, Durham University, Palace Green, Durham DH13RL, United Kingdom

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Papers by Joris De Henau

Le grand-orgue Cavaillé-Coll (1856) de l'église Saint-Nicolas de Gand

La Flûte Harmonique. Publication de l'Association Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, 2018

Histoire de l'orgue Cavaillé-Coll à Gand, le premier orgue construit en Belgique par le fameux fa... more

Towards an Aesthetics of the (in)formel: Time, Space and the Dialectical Image in the Music of Varèse, Feldman and Xenakis

This thesis addresses the issue of the modernist musical artwork, specifically the spatialization... more This thesis addresses the issue of the modernist musical artwork, specifically the spatialization of musical time, in aesthetic and music-analytic terms. Firstly, it focuses on the notion of musique informelle as it was expounded in Adorno’s essay ‘Vers une musique informelle,’ (1961) and its place in Gianmario Borio’s elaboration of this in terms of an aesthetics of the informel. Secondly, it proposes a further expansion of these aesthetics via a double strategy: a comparative reading of Walter Benjamin’s critique of philosophies of time (including the work of Henri Bergson), language and objects, and furthermore a reconceptualization of both Adorno’s and Borio’s aesthetics in terms of a new theory of the object (as sound-object) in light of a new reading strategy. This reading is based on Walter Benjamin’s notion of the dialectical image, which proposes a new form of philosophical interpretation. The theorizations of the sound-object and the dialectical image furnish a basis for a re-conceptalization of the (in)formel, allowing for the interpretative reading of the music of three composers in particular: Edgard Varèse, Morton Feldman and Iannis Xenakis. Particularly, the study of a number of their works, including Intégrales (Varèse), On Time and the Instrumental Factor and Words and Music (Feldman), and Duel (Xenakis), reveals what Adorno terms their (truth) content, in their mediation of rationalization and intuition. Finally, it is argued that these modernist works can in turn bring new insights into Adorno’s aesthetics of the modernist work of art.

Adorno's 'musique informelle': Towards a Re-conceptualization (conference paper - Music, Marxism and the Frankfurt School, UCD, Dublin, July 2-4 2014)

Borio s critique of Adorno s influential concept. In his examination of compositional praxis arou... more Borio s critique of Adorno s influential concept. In his examination of compositional praxis around 1960, Borio noted a shift away from an overriding preoccupation with pitch towards a new concern with texture, which led him to develop the concept of a sound-object. His observation of this phenomenon led Borio to expand the reach of Adorno s original concept and to develop it into an aesthetic. I argue that Borio's re-conceptualisation can be fruitfully extended by drawing on Adorno's late thinking on time in which he revisited key concepts evolved by Walter Benjamin, and which led him to substantially modify his theory of the artwork. I will attempt to pursue the implication of these ideas for the temporal dimension of the modernist artwork, additionally drawing on Benjamin's theories of a language of objects, his critique of the historicist concept of time, and his concept of the dialectical image. On this basis, I propose a new understanding of the sound-object which enables us to amplify the notion of musique informelle, showing how it can illuminate the treatment of temporality in the work of Morton Feldman, amongst others. This double reading of the post-war avant-garde musical work in this sense attempts to combine the analytic of the structural functioning of textures (as sound objects) with the philosophical reading of the work as dialectical image.

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