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Le toucher des philosophes: Sartre, Nietzsche et Barthes au piano
L'engagement de Sartre dans l'Histoire est connu, ses discussions avec Che Guevara, ses déclarations incendiaires contre la colonisation, ses harangues sur un tonneau de Billancourt... Sait-on qu'en pleine euphorie militante, Sartre réservait chaque jour du temps pour le piano ? Il déchiffrait des partitions de Chopin ou Debussy. L'homme qui incarnait son siècle vivait des intensités et des rythmes secrets. Comment la philosophie s'accorde-t-elle à cette pratique en contrebande ? Nietzsche, qui se rêvait compositeur plus que philosophe, adopta le piano comme son diapason, la table d'évaluation de ses idées, l'instrument de ses transfigurations intimes. Combattre Wagner, vaincre la lourdeur, épouser Lou, devenir méditerranéen... il joua sa vie sur le clavier, même pendant sa folie. Décider de vivre en musique engage le corps amoureux. Barthes le comprit, à l'écart des codes dont il était devenu le théoricien. Le piano lui offrit une échappée hors des discours savants. Musicien, il découvrit une autre érotique, tantôt berceuse enfantine, tantôt pourvoyeuse de pulsions. Le jeu musical transporte une gamme d'affects qui se prolongent dans la vie sociale et intellectuelle, de sorte que la pratique du piano ne laisse pas intact le reste des jours. Doigtés, allures, sensualités, tout se livre sur la touche.
192 pages, Paperback
First published October 10, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 26, 2012
The Philosopher's Touch bubbled with interest. I maintain an interest in two of the three thinkers profiled. Barthes never resonated for me. I liked S/Z but largely I think for the wrong reasons. Anyone writing about (around? towards?) Balzac deserves some attention, don't they? It was also an interesting point that Sartre and Nietzsche were the subjects of biographies by Ronald Hayman. I love both of those books. Figurative warts are prominent. Noudelmann's project is very specific, the task of private piano playing as a reflection of a philosophical project; I know, cool, innit? There much digression and speculation: any effort about such a an activity will likely require some meandering and/or padding. I thought the examples noted are successful. It does tempt some reflection on Nietzsche's and Sartre's thoughts and actions.
January 26, 2016
The author’s thesis is that playing music, and more particularly playing the piano, engages a unique disposition to the world. It brings about an affective state that Noudelmann characterizes as ‚active passivity’ and it allows us to free oneself from the collective rhythms of society. So rather than that the player relies on the instrument to express him/herself, the instrument brings about an oblique process of subjectification: „The subject who loves, perceives, and thinks, constructs itself through rhythms that are at once followed, decided upon, and combined. The hypothesis of this book is that playing music offers a privileged time for such subjectification, a time during which the ordering and disordering of a subject’s relation to the real are at work.” So, piano playing is not recreational but performative: „unlike a leisure activity, piano playing outstrips the time we allot to it. It inheres lastingly in our very existence - in the way we walk and see.”
So what does this genuinely fascinating insight yields when it is confronted with the musical practices of three important thinkers? Sartre, Nietzsche and Barthes were philosophers who projected a very emphatic self-images through their public writings. But in private they were amateur musicians who loved to spend time at the keyboard. Given Noudelmann’s thesis it is not surprising that he finds that the musical activity often contravened these thinkers’ public persona. For instance, Sartre, ‚total intellectual’, theorized about the musical avant-garde but when he was alone at the piano he played Chopin and tunes from comic operas while singing at the top of his lungs. As a philosopher Sartre was a man of control and ruthlessly driven to capture what was new but at the keyboard he was a typical sight-reader who improvised his way through a familiar repertory. Noudelmann asks: „How are we to explain such a gap between listening and playing, between public discourse and private pleasure? Is it imposture? Contradiction? Dissonance? A secret conservatism?”
It’s an interesting starting point but the book demands a lot of patience. I almost threw the towel in the ring after the introductory section on Sartre. I found the author’s prose to be long-winded, his argument disorganized, his ideas speculative and the insights ultimately rather meager. But that apparently is how Noudelmann wants us to experience his musings because in his writing he wants to get his finger behind the amateurism of these philosophers, associated to a physical and unstable experience of music that eludes conceptualization and can only be approached at an angle.
The section on Nietzsche struck me as rather more substantial. No doubt because this was a philosopher who had actually something to say about music (and even dabbled in composition). The chapter also reveals a hidden agenda of the author because it is again Chopin who takes center stage in the discussion of Nietzsche’s musical passions: „Chopin (…) was not simply the object of a cultural identification on his part; it was also the very sound-matter that inspired him as a philosopher-musician.” This is a rather strong statement as Noudelmann admits that Nietzsche, in his works and correspondence, only very sparingly makes reference to the Pole. In addition the chapter on Nietzsche offers a relatively sober discussion of his critique on Wagner and the antidotes he found in Bizet’s Carmen, his romantic infatuation with Lou Andreas Salomé and the musical conception underlying his Zarathustra. In working through these musico-philosophical issues the piano remained Nietzche’s diapason and laboratory table.
The final chapter is devoted to Roland Barthes and here I started to be really captivated by Noudelmann’s argument. But Barthes was a musical connaisseur and wrote extensively about his own piano playing, specifically in his embodiment of an amateur musician. There is a very interesting, phenomenologically grounded relationship between Barthes’ own style and substance of philosophizing (his ‚intellectual impressionism’, his interest in idorhythms, displacements and networks) and the ‚amateur vagueness’ that pervades his musical practice. When it comes to his musical tastes, it is no surprise that „Barthes’s greatest musicological concern comes down essentially to the preference that had to be given either to Schumann or to Chopin” … But luckily it is his love for Robert Schumann that Noudelmann choses to elaborate most extensively. Altogether this chapter provides an interesting and idiosyncratic introduction to Barthes’s thinking.
My score for this book averages out on three stars: 2 for the chapter on Sartre, 3 for Nietzsche and 4 for Barthes.
So what does this genuinely fascinating insight yields when it is confronted with the musical practices of three important thinkers? Sartre, Nietzsche and Barthes were philosophers who projected a very emphatic self-images through their public writings. But in private they were amateur musicians who loved to spend time at the keyboard. Given Noudelmann’s thesis it is not surprising that he finds that the musical activity often contravened these thinkers’ public persona. For instance, Sartre, ‚total intellectual’, theorized about the musical avant-garde but when he was alone at the piano he played Chopin and tunes from comic operas while singing at the top of his lungs. As a philosopher Sartre was a man of control and ruthlessly driven to capture what was new but at the keyboard he was a typical sight-reader who improvised his way through a familiar repertory. Noudelmann asks: „How are we to explain such a gap between listening and playing, between public discourse and private pleasure? Is it imposture? Contradiction? Dissonance? A secret conservatism?”
It’s an interesting starting point but the book demands a lot of patience. I almost threw the towel in the ring after the introductory section on Sartre. I found the author’s prose to be long-winded, his argument disorganized, his ideas speculative and the insights ultimately rather meager. But that apparently is how Noudelmann wants us to experience his musings because in his writing he wants to get his finger behind the amateurism of these philosophers, associated to a physical and unstable experience of music that eludes conceptualization and can only be approached at an angle.
The section on Nietzsche struck me as rather more substantial. No doubt because this was a philosopher who had actually something to say about music (and even dabbled in composition). The chapter also reveals a hidden agenda of the author because it is again Chopin who takes center stage in the discussion of Nietzsche’s musical passions: „Chopin (…) was not simply the object of a cultural identification on his part; it was also the very sound-matter that inspired him as a philosopher-musician.” This is a rather strong statement as Noudelmann admits that Nietzsche, in his works and correspondence, only very sparingly makes reference to the Pole. In addition the chapter on Nietzsche offers a relatively sober discussion of his critique on Wagner and the antidotes he found in Bizet’s Carmen, his romantic infatuation with Lou Andreas Salomé and the musical conception underlying his Zarathustra. In working through these musico-philosophical issues the piano remained Nietzche’s diapason and laboratory table.
The final chapter is devoted to Roland Barthes and here I started to be really captivated by Noudelmann’s argument. But Barthes was a musical connaisseur and wrote extensively about his own piano playing, specifically in his embodiment of an amateur musician. There is a very interesting, phenomenologically grounded relationship between Barthes’ own style and substance of philosophizing (his ‚intellectual impressionism’, his interest in idorhythms, displacements and networks) and the ‚amateur vagueness’ that pervades his musical practice. When it comes to his musical tastes, it is no surprise that „Barthes’s greatest musicological concern comes down essentially to the preference that had to be given either to Schumann or to Chopin” … But luckily it is his love for Robert Schumann that Noudelmann choses to elaborate most extensively. Altogether this chapter provides an interesting and idiosyncratic introduction to Barthes’s thinking.
My score for this book averages out on three stars: 2 for the chapter on Sartre, 3 for Nietzsche and 4 for Barthes.
June 1, 2025
ilk 2 bölüm, Sarte ve Nietzche o kadar zorladı ki... kaç kez düşündüm kitabı bırakmayı. 3.bölümdr Barthes'e gelince kendimi buldum, ve anladım ki, kitabı beğen(me)mek ne kadar subjektif. aslında yazarın yeteneği veya konuya yaklaşımından öte, kendimizi o kitapta ne kadar bulduğumuzla da çok ilintili. o nedenle 5 puan. yoksa 3-3.5
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"Bana kimi dinlediğini söyle, kim olduğunu söyleyeyim. Nietzsche hayatın renklerden ve zevklerden ibaret olduğu görüşündeydi. Başkalarının ne dinledigini yahut ötekiler arasındaki ötekinin ne dinlediğini bilmek bu nedenle önemlidir. Sevgililer ve dostlar sormaz mı birbirilerine en çok hangi müziği sevdiklerini"
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"Bana kimi dinlediğini söyle, kim olduğunu söyleyeyim. Nietzsche hayatın renklerden ve zevklerden ibaret olduğu görüşündeydi. Başkalarının ne dinledigini yahut ötekiler arasındaki ötekinin ne dinlediğini bilmek bu nedenle önemlidir. Sevgililer ve dostlar sormaz mı birbirilerine en çok hangi müziği sevdiklerini"
April 19, 2023
Was Sartre interested in music? To establish the range of our probe, we can begin by perusing the many studies that he devoted to the arts, including matieriste painting, kinetic sculpture, photojournalism, popular cinema, African poetry, the American novel. His works present a near encyclopedic repertory. Almost nothing escaped Sartre's drive to capture what was new. An insatiable curiosity lies at the bottom of his conception of the total intellectual, someone authorized to speak about everything, beyond any disciplinary specialization.
April 15, 2012
A book that plays around with the concept that a philosopher has fun with music and it can, and does, represent the other sides to the major theory that is written down.Noudelmann plays with the reader and attempts to underpin the philosophical structure of Barthes, Sartre's and Nietzche's work by developing a series of ideas about their favourite composers and their relationship to the piano as an art form.Delightfully understated it is a work less of philosophy but more of a homage to the piano and the art form
December 17, 2017
Impotent observations. Musically and philosophically uninteresting. Pseudo-deepities abound. I have played Nietzsche’s music and listened to available videos and beg to differ with the author’s sense of over-value in this subject. Why not Adorno or Gide for inclusion?
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews