Małgorzata Grajter

‘Translating’ Music: Applying Translation Theories to the Research on Musical Work

This paper summarizes in short the book project of the same title, which aims at applying the methodology taken from Translation Studies to the research on a musical work. Despite so many potential points of contact, the border between musicology and Translation Studies still remains an underexplored area. As the Turkish-British researcher Şebnem Susam-Sarajeva points out, this might be due to the limited competence of translators in the field of music on one hand. Musicologists, in turn, are inhibited by their lack of knowledge of translation theories, which traditionally belong to the territory of philologists, philosophers, semioticians, literary scholars and linguists. Meanwhile, the wealth of methodologies offered by Translation Studies may prove to become an invaluable support in the research on a musical work. 

Still, some semiotic approaches to translation are inclined to incorporate musical phenomena into their general theories (see. f.e., Umberto Eco, Dinda Gorlée, Kobus Marais). For the past few years of my research, I have been dealing with what could be considered as forms of musical translation. Technically, this umbrella term encompasses such phenomena as musical arrangement, transcription, reduction, orchestration or cover version. Currently, I am extending the concept to include performance and forms of intersemiotic (extra-systemic) transpositions (transductions) between music and other arts. As a consequence of this line of thought, I attempted to apply several concepts, methodologies and typologisations used for literary translation, in reference to the new renditions and reinterpretations of musical works.

Bio:

Małgorzata Grajter is a music theorist and pianist, Master of Arts and PhD graduate of The Grażyna and Kiejstut Bacewicz University of Music in Łódź, Poland, currently Assistant Professor in the Department of the Music Theory at her Alma Mater and guest researcher at the University of Łódź, Faculty of Phililogy. She took part in international seminars and conferences, such as: Beethoven-Studienkolleg (Bonn), XI and XIV International Congress on Musical Signification (Kraków and Cluj), International Beethoven Symposium (Warsaw), International Beethoven Conference in Manchester, Academy of Cultural Heritages (Ermoupolis), Beethoven-Perspektiven (Bonn).

Since her master thesis about Beethoven’s oratorio Christus am Ölberge, Grajter’s research was centered around the topic of Beethoven’s vocal music. Her doctoral thesis, Das Wort-Ton-Verhältnis im Werk von Ludwig van Beethoven, which had previously been granted a prestigious Reverend Hieronim Feicht Award in Poland, was published in the German language by Peter Lang Verlag (2019). She is also an author of articles and book chapters in Polish, English, German and Portuguese. Beethoven aside, her main research interests include relationships between language and music, translation theory, intermedial studies and musical signification from the Classical period to modernity.