Otomo Yoshihide: Musicista O “Noise-Maker”? Una Lettura Wittgensteiniana

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate why Otomo Yoshihide – one of the most controversial postmodern Japanese musicians – could be considered a “Wittgensteinian innovator.” I will first outline Wittgenstein’s views on music, emphasizing his later thoughts on music as a practice embedded in a form of life. The focus will then shift to the ways in which we are able to understand music, the key musical characteristics that cannot be subverted to continue composing, and, ultimately, why Wittgenstein considers the modern musical approach to be decadent and unsuccessful. Subsequently, after a brief presentation of Otomo Yoshihide, I will underline how he challenges the conventional conception of music through his works and ideas, proposing a new way of organizing sound that may ultimately be impossible to define as music, yet stands in direct opposition to what Wittgenstein deemed the cause of the progressive decline of art as a whole. In fact, by the end of this study, I argue that Otomo’s work could also be described as “anti-Mahlerian,” considering that Mahler was defined by Wittgenstein as a great musical talent with the wrong artistic approach. Otomo’s proposal, on the other hand, offers a completely new and bold perspective on making music, capable of bringing the art back into a shared space accessible to everyone, just as Wittgenstein would have desired, though in some respects placing talent in a secondary role.