Politik des Hörens

The idea behind this book stems from the conviction that hearing can be understood as an ability that is disposed, oriented, and oriented toward the political. The expression "politics of hearing" should be read in the sense of a genitive subject, whereby listening to music is understood and discussed as a sensual-intellectual attitude that itself has its own political valence. This book, which arose from reflections on the role of listening in the work of composer Luigi Nono, thus focuses neither on aesthetic activity in the sense of direct political intervention nor on an examination of the composer's political position. Rather, it seeks to theoretically grasp the disposition toward politics that listening to Nono's music encourages and to discuss it using selected examples. Basically, the political in Nono's music did not so much play out in the immediate referentiality to the real, but rather in the "world reference" (Albrecht Wellmer) of the sound itself, in the compositional concretion, in the invitation to hear differently and other things. Nono's music disposes to listening, and listening in his work is always also a dis-position to the political. The political in Nono's music always comes to light when listeners encounter each other in listening to the music itself, based on a "division of the sensual" (Jacques Rancière) as a listening "community" (Jean-Luc Nancy), sharing their plural experiences: the political aspect of listening therefore lies in sharing meaning with one another. For, as Hannah Arendt put it, "politics arises in the in-between and establishes itself as a relationship." The subversive potential of the politics of listening lies in the listeners' entering into a relationship with each other and in the discursive negotiation of their own disposition toward the political: for the political aspect of music lies in listening with one another.

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