Event overview
Was Handel A Plagiarist (And Why Should We Care)?
Abstract: "It is well known to musicologists and other students of Handel’s music that Handel used the works of other composers copiously in his own works without ever giving any credit at all to those whose music he appropriated. Indeed, so extreme and frequent were these uses of other composers’ works that Sedley Taylor, in his classic treatment of the subject, The Indebtedness of Handel to the Works by Other Composers, was moved to conclude that Handel’s “appropriations from the works of other composers, living and dead went…both as to their character and their extent, far beyond anything that has been established, or even asserted of any other composer of the first rank. Given this incontestable fact, I propose, in this lecture, to raise and, I hope, to answer, two questions. The first is a moral question: Was Handel a plagiarist? And I shall answer that question in the affirmative. But it is the second question that interests me far more and has, so far as I know, never been raised. And that is not a moral question but, rather, an aesthetic question, a question in the philosophy of art, namely, how are we to hear these plagiarized movements in Handel’s works, after we learn they are plagiarized? That it seems to me both an important and neglected question, and will be the major subject of the lecture."
Peter Kivy’s research is concerned with the philosophy of music and he has written many books on a wide range of subjects. He is warmly welcomed to Goldsmiths where he will present recent work.
Professor Peter Kivy is Board of Governors Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University, the State University of New Jersey, where he specialises in aesthetics and the philosophy of art, including music and literature. He is credited with rejuvenating the now flourishing subject of music aesthetics: ‘Introduction to a Philosophy of Music’ (2002) is regarded as essential reading on the subject.
All welcome, not just for graduates!
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 25 Feb 2014 | 5:00pm - 6:00pm |
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