Elaboration, Counterpoint, Transgression: Music and the Role of the Aesthetic in the Criticism of Edward W. Said

This article examines the role of the aesthetic in the criticism of Edward Said through a reading of two lesser-explored texts, Musical Elaborations (1991) and On Late Style (2006). It explores how, by drawing upon ideas from Gramsci and Adorno, Said advocates a convergence of social and aesthetic approaches to musical analysis and criticism. Although critical of some of the tensions arising from Said’s varying perspectives on music and society, the article suggests that we can nonetheless detect a distinctive ideology of the aesthetic in Said’s writings on music. It argues that Said’s ideas on the temporal or narrative structure of certain musical works or performances function, within his wider thinking, as an aesthetic paradigm for undermining fixed identity and linear or totalizing narratives. Thus Said’s reflections on music do not simply retreat from social and political concerns, but rather elaborate a utopian thinking regarding the interface between criticism and the aesthetic.