Overview

Renowned philosopher and prominent French critic François Noudelmann engages the musicality of Jean-Paul Sartre, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Roland Barthes, all of whom were amateur piano players and acute lovers of the medium. Though piano playing was a crucial art for these thinkers, their musings on the subject are largely scant, implicit, or discordant with each philosopher's oeuvre. Noudelmann both recovers and integrates these perspectives, showing that the manner in which these philosophers played, the composers they adored, and the music they chose reveals uncommon insight into their thinking styles and patterns. Noudelmann positions the physical and theoretical practice of music as a dimension underpinning and resonating with Sartre's, Nietzsche's, and Barthes's unique philosophical outlook. By reading their thought against their music, he introduces new critical formulations and reorients their trajectories, adding invaluable richness to these philosophers' lived and embodied experiences. The result heightens the multiple registers of being and the relationship between philosophy and the senses that informed so much of their work. A careful reader of music, Noudelmann maintains an elegant command of the texts under his gaze and appreciates the discursive points of musical and philosophical scholarship they involve, especially with regard to recent research and cutting-edge critique.

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Reviews

Who before Francois Noudelmann has shone a spotlight on great thinkers enamored with the piano? In the lives of Sartre, Nietzsche, and Barthes, exercising at the keyboard for pleasure was crucial. Yet their writing about music is relatively scant, implicit, or even, sometimes, discordant with their work. Breaking boldly with the academism all too common on the French scene of writing, Noudelmann's The Philosopher's Touch reveals an entirely new dimension of these figures' writing styles and thinking patterns. His piano is a harmonics of three disparate philosophers. -- Robert Harvey, professor of French and comparative literatures, State University of New York, Stony Brook Amateur pianist and philosopher Francois Noudelmann was jolted into action when he saw a video of Sartre at the piano. Like a recurring traumatic flashback, the Sartrean performance touches off a series of reflections on the covert practices of three highly attuned thinkers. The relation to music, private and protected, offers another register by which to read the unsayable in the imposing works of Jean-Paul Sartre, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Roland Barthes. Ever vying with language for sovereignty, music disrupts the implacable habits of linguistic positing and delivers these exemplary writers to the scene of their greatest vulnerability. -- Avital Ronell, New York University and the European Graduate School, author of The Test Drive and Finitude's Score: Essays for the End of the Millenium An elegant ode to the emotional and intellectual importance of music and solitude.Publishers WeeklyPublishers Weekly Publishers Weekly 10/17/2011 a remarkable and revealing book. Library Journal 12/1/2011 Noudelmann's book is musically sophisticated and informed by deep knowledge of thepiano...This little book is a unique chapter in the aesthetics of thepiano, and serves as a wonderful opening beat for a suite of others to follow. -- Daniel Herwitz Notre Dame Philosophical Review June 2012 ...essays that pique the reader's interest, rather than bludgeoning it. -- Scott McLemee Inside Higher Ed 7/18/2012 The book probes the meanings of these elective affinities, and speculates on both the yawning gaps and hidden passageways between intellectual and corporeal pleasures, the travails of the mind and the secret life of the fingers. -- Jeremy Eichler Boston Globe 8/4/2012 A musical reverie, a meditation, best if savoured slowly. -- Cynthia Peck The Vienna Review of Books 6/1/12 In today's philosophical culture, where thinkers seem to have succumbed to a fashion of soulless scholasticism, the significance of an invigorating book like Noudelmann's is difficult to overestimate. -- Costica Bradatan The European Legacy 2/18/14

Who before Francois Noudelmann has shone a spotlight on great thinkers enamored with the piano? In the lives of Sartre, Nietzsche, and Barthes, exercising at the keyboard for pleasure was crucial. Yet their writing about music is relatively scant, implicit, or even, sometimes, discordant with their work. Breaking boldly with the academism all too common on the French scene of writing, Noudelmann's The Philosopher's Touch reveals an entirely new dimension of these figures' writing styles and thinking patterns. His piano is a harmonics of three disparate philosophers. -- Robert Harvey, professor of French and comparative literatures, State University of New York, Stony Brook Amateur pianist and philosopher Francois Noudelmann was jolted into action when he saw a video of Sartre at the piano. Like a recurring traumatic flashback, the Sartrean performance touches off a series of reflections on the covert practices of three highly attuned thinkers. The relation to music, private and protected, offers another register by which to read the unsayable in the imposing works of Jean-Paul Sartre, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Roland Barthes. Ever vying with language for sovereignty, music disrupts the implacable habits of linguistic positing and delivers these exemplary writers to the scene of their greatest vulnerability. -- Avital Ronell, New York University and the European Graduate School, author of The Test Drive and Finitude's Score: Essays for the End of the Millenium An elegant ode to the emotional and intellectual importance of music and solitude. Publishers Weekly 10/17/2011

<p>Amateur pianist and philosopher Francois Noudelmann was jolted into writing action when he saw a video of Sartre on the piano. Like a recurring traumatic flashback, the Sartrean performance touches off a series of reflections on the covert practices of three highly attuned thinkers. The relation to music, private and protected, offers another register by which to read the unsayable in the imposing works of Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Roland Barthes. Ever vying with language for sovereignty, music disrupts the implacable habits of linguistic positing, taking these exemplary writers to the scene of their greatest vulnerability.--Avital Ronell, University Professor of the Humanities, NYU; Jacques Derrida Professor of Philosophy and Media at the European Graduate School Author of The Test Drive and Finitude's Score

Who, before Francois Noudelmann, has shined the spotlight on great thinkers enamored with the piano? Not even Adorno, dare I say. In the lives of Sartre, Nietzsche, and Barthes, exercising at the keyboard for pleasure was crucial. Yet their writing about music is relatively scant, implicit or even, sometimes, in apparent discordance with their work. Breaking boldly with the academism all too common on the French scene of writing, Noudelmann's The Philosopher's Touch reveals an entirely new dimension of these figures' writing style and thinking patterns. A harmonics of three disparate philosophers: Noudelmann's piano. -- Robert Harvey, Professor of French and Comparative Literatures at SUNY Stony Brook Amateur pianist and philosopher Francois Noudelmann was jolted into writing action when he saw a video of Sartre on the piano. Like a recurring traumatic flashback, the Sartrean performance touches off a series of reflections on the covert practices of three highly attuned thinkers. The relation to music, private and protected, offers another register by which to read the unsayable in the imposing works of Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Roland Barthes. Ever vying with language for sovereignty, music disrupts the implacable habits of linguistic positing, taking these exemplary writers to the scene of their greatest vulnerability. -- Avital Ronell, University Professor of the Humanities, NYU; Jacques Derrida Professor of Philosophy and Media at the European Graduate School Author of The Test Drive and Finitude's Score

Author Information

Francois Noudelmann is professor of philosophy at l'Universite Paris VIII. He has taught at The State University of New York, Stony Brook, and Johns Hopkins University, and he has served as president of the College International de Philosophie and host of France-Culture's radio program Philosophy Fridays. His publications include Samuel Beckett, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Image et absence. Essai sur le regard. Brian J. Reilly is visiting assistant professor of French literature at Johns Hopkins University.

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