Hans Keller Quotes

Hans Keller was an Austrian-born British musician and writer, who made significant contributions to musicology and music criticism, as well as being a commentator on such disparate fields as psychoanalysis and football. In the late 1950s, he invented the method of "wordless functional analysis", in which a musical composition is analysed in musical sound alone, without any words being heard or read. He worked full-time for the BBC between 1959 and 1979. Wikipedia

✵ 11. March 1919 – 6. November 1985

Hans Keller: 2 quotes 0 likes

Hans Keller Quotes

“… there is no point to musical analysis at all unless it is 'two-dimensional' – unless […] one examines the music in terms of what I call its 'Background' (and this 'Background' is the sum total of the expectations which the composer creates) and its 'Foreground' (and its 'Foreground' is what he does instead). That is to say, the composer creates certain expectations, well-defined expectations, which he proceeds to meaningfully contradict. There is therefore a strong relation between 'Background' and 'Foreground', between that which happens and that which lies at its back – or to put it the other way round, between that which the composer leads you to expect, and that which he does instead…”

Hans Keller

Hans Keller, Lecture on Beethoven's Op.130, BBC broadcast from Leeds University, 1973.

Music , Way , Strong

“Well, there it is. I think you can pass your verdict as well as I can. My verdict is that it is a little bit of a regression to childhood, but after all, why not?”

Hans Keller

Hans Keller, discussing the then-new group Pink Floyd, The Look of the Week, BBC TV, May 1967.

Thinking , Childhood

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