Physical Distortion, Emotion and Subjectivity:: Musical Virtuosity and Body Anxiety

Wiebke Thormählen

doi:10.1057/9781137339515

Physical Distortion, Emotion and Subjectivity: Musical Virtuosity and Body Anxiety

Wiebke Thormählen

Royal College of Music

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter

Abstract

Examines the impact of theories of nervousness on debates on virtuosity. Examining the debate on figures such as Franz Liszt, the essay considers the musical body as the location of nervous stimulation, as an object of display, and as the subject of complex discourses on class and gender. Drawing on portraits of virtuosi from the 18th and 19th centuries and medical literature, it provides an important insight into the position of embodiment at a crucial period in the development of both the ideology of Classical music and of modern bourgeois subjectivity.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Music and the Nerves, 1700 – 1900
Publisher	Palgrave Macmillan
Pages	191-217
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137339515
Publication status	Published - 2014
Externally published	Yes

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10.1057/9781137339515

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Physical Distortion, Emotion and Subjectivity: Musical Virtuosity and Body Anxiety

Abstract

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