Rhythm

What Dominique Pagani says

Dominique Pagani defines rhythm in opposition to metre: it is the way of surprising listeners in relation to what the metre leads them to expect1. Syncopation is the example, since it catches this expectation out2. He draws from this a distinction that, in his view, the public fails to make: Beethoven's jazz variation is highly metrical and rests on an obsessive rhythmic cell3. He also refuses to reduce jazz to its rhythm, which would overlook its harmonic invention4. For him, swing is an alternation of tension and release, comparable to breathing5. If rhythm has a hold on us, it is because the body is already pervaded by vital rhythms: breathing, the heart, walking6. He sees rhythm as what distinguishes poetry from prose in Greek and German. Finally, he links Russian and American music through their rhythmic obsession, which he connects to the trot of the horse dividing up infinite space7.

1. 1La Musique de l'Histoire26 Apr 2015 · 1:23:19
2. 2Musicosophie 4. Les ghettos sonores3 Dec 2020 · 12:22
3. 3Musicosophie 6. La Variation Jazz... de Beethoven15 Dec 2020 · 34:40
4. 4Musicosophie 6. La Variation Jazz... de Beethoven15 Dec 2020 · 50:08
5. 5La Musique de l'Histoire26 Apr 2015 · 58:49
6. 6Musicosophie 15. Platon, Rouseau, Hegel et la musique9 Feb 2021 · 32:05
7. 7TCHAÏKOVSKI - DES STEPPES AU MIDWEST • Pagani Parle Musique15 Jun 2022 · 9:24

Summary produced automatically from 9 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.