CHEERS TO US.S..S… : quotation, allusion, and pastiche in acousmatic music

This article describes acousmatic music as an intertextual artform. It offers three central ways in which specific works of acousmatic music might reference the works of others, using the terms quotation, allusion, and pastiche. Although these terms will be familiar to anyone that has studied intertextuality, the types of references typically found within acousmatic music are fairly unique; the application of such terms requires some discussion, therefore, to clarify the intended meaning in each case. During this discussion, I notice that almost all of the existing literature on this topic focuses upon quotations, despite these being relatively scarce within the practice of acousmatic music. I present the alternative view that allusion and pastiche are more common, but also more difficult to identify and describe. Along the way, I employ Davies’ notion of thick and thin art works (Davies 2004), Lacasse’s notion of the autosonic and the allosonic (Lacasse 2000), and Genette’s notion of the hypertext and the hypotext (Genette 1997a). I apply these terms and concepts to To US.S..S… (Stanović 2021) - an acousmatic work that intentionally references the music of around thirty other composers. Although this level of intentional referencing may be unusual within the field of acousmatic music, I advance the idea that all works of acousmatic music contain references to the works of others, even if these were not directly intended by the composer. Taken as a whole, the article offers a starting point for anyone wishing to conduct intertextual analysis of acousmatic works, while advancing the idea that the study of references in acousmatic music is increasingly important to our understanding of the past, present, and future of the acousmatic tradition.