The thesis argues that musical authority is not first grounded and then applied. It binds before its ground can be exhibited, then presents the effects of that binding as if they had been given in advance. Reading Rameau’s harmonic theory alongside Kant’s critical philosophy, it shows legislator and domain to be co-constituted.
It then traces how such authority is maintained after its contingency becomes visible: through Wagnerian deferral, Schoenbergian suspension, hexachordal solmisation, jazz pedagogy, Liza Lim’s Invisibility and contemporary compositional institutions. Drawing on Fichte, Klossowski, Deleuze and Hegel, it explains why critique so often leaves these norms in force.
The structured looseness between rule and application, proposed as the condition under which new musical authority can emerge.
Portfolio
Nach dem Gesetz
Chamber orchestra, 15′34″. After Kafka’s Vor dem Gesetz: overlapping legislative zones of self-imposed constraints, the orchestral tutti set against chamber-like writing.
String Quartet No. 1
6′54″. Written with a purpose-built Python constraint solver. Premiered by the Vacuum Quartet in St Petersburg, May 2026.