How Sound and Music Intersect With Violence: From Dante to Modern War

How sound and music intersect with violence

The relationship between sound, music, and violence has emerged as a fertile field of interdisciplinary research. When Virgil leads Dante through the gates of Hell in the Divine Comedy, the poet is terrified not by what he sees, but by what he hears: "Weeping, sighing, and high shrieks resounded in the starless air." The chorus of suffering voices in "various languages" and "horrible jargons" creates a whirling, deafening racket. Confused by these sounds of terror and pain, Dante asks his guide, "Master, what is it that I hear?" He feels the anguish carried by the sounds but cannot identify who produces them or why.

This moment captures the emotional complexity of sonic phenomena and illustrates how listening can become a tool for exploration, engagement, and sensory knowledge of the world. This special issue proposes to examine those subjects through the lens of sound, music, and violence, six years after the journal's volume on "Music and Armed Conflicts after 1945." The field has grown considerably, drawing on musicology, ethnomusicology, history, anthropology, and sound studies. Scholars have investigated everything from wartime repertoires to the listening experiences of soldiers and civilians in conflict and post-conflict settings. Early pioneering work by Svanibor Pettan on the Balkan wars paved the way for studies linking music and violence, research on sonic and musical practices among U.S. soldiers during and after the Iraq invasion, and renewed attention to the two world wars as well as armed conflicts of the 19th and 20th centuries.

This collective scientific project fosters dialogue among researchers from different countries, each bringing concepts and methods from various humanities and social science disciplines. The journal appears amid broad social movements expressing anxiety about neoliberal reforms in French higher education and research. In response to the cult of performance, the myth of individual success, and competitive pressures, it matters to stress that knowledge production is fundamentally collaborative.

The thematic dossier contains three articles drawn from a 2018 conference on "Sound and Music in War from the Middle Ages to the Present," organized at the University of Fribourg. A second section includes one interview and three critical commentaries that respond to and extend the arguments presented. A third section offers eight essays commenting on individual texts or exploring theoretical, ethical, and methodological questions raised by research into music, sound, and war. The guiding questions are simple yet profound: How can studying sound and music help us understand collective violence and war? And conversely, how can studying war and collective violence illuminate why musical practices and listening matter to human beings?

Associating music with violence, destruction, and wartime atrocity remains counterintuitive within much social-science research. As ethnomusicologist Timothy Rice points out, work in what he calls "ethnomusicology in times (and places) of trouble" was scarce before the early 2000s. This scarcity reflects, among other factors, a widespread cultural imagination that automatically links music with positive things, as well as scholarly assumptions that music can only flourish in socially stable contexts. The texts in this issue work to dismantle those assumptions.

Experiencing violence through listening

The sonic narrative of Dante's Inferno reminds us that sound can be an event that permanently reshapes a listener's perception of the world. The cries and laments echoing in Hades both terrify Dante and signify his entry into an unknown domain. Sound can also become a temporal process that, through sensory interaction with the listener, transforms perceived reality.

Dante learns to navigate this new auditory world, acquiring understanding about its structures and power relations. Violence and war relocate the boundaries and thresholds of ordinary soundscapes, permanently altering listeners' acoustic frames of reference. The development of these listening habits and capacities constitutes a "regime of audition": the array of techniques, technologies, regulations, and shared knowledge that configures how a community listens.

Recent research explores the possibility of grasping the experience of war through such regimes of audition, drawing especially on combatants' narratives. In one essay from this issue, Michael Guida examines a rarely studied dimension of those stories: British soldiers' sonic encounters with nature on the Western Front during World War I. Through diaries, poems, and letters, Guida shows that soldiers attached particular significance to birdsong, which structured their trench-listening experiences. John Morgan O'Connell discusses several authors' ideas and connects them with his own work on the Battle of Gallipoli (1915–1916), probing the relationships between music and memory—especially how music is used to both remember and forget, celebrate victory and commemorate defeat.

The analysis of non-combatants' auditory experiences also sheds light on armed violence. Nikita Hock investigates this topic in her article on the listening experiences of Jews in Warsaw and Eastern Galicia who sheltered in underground bunkers during World War II. Drawing on a large set of diaries, Hock examines the experiences of civilians, including women and the elderly, who endured violence and persecution during the Holocaust.

Listening to sonic traces of violence

A central challenge for building an "acoustemology of violence" is accessing and interpreting sources. How should researchers make sense of wartime sonic traces embedded in written documents?

Annegret Fauser argues in her essay that these archives are not direct records, but mediations of sonic experiences from the past—ways of both listening and storytelling. Extending the work of Ana María Ochoa Gautier, she advocates for what she calls an "acoustically tuned exploration of the written archive," one that interrogates archives themselves as historically constructed entities that set some voices above others.

Violence always strikes "at the heart of a person's dignity, sense of self, and future." It blurs the lines between sound, noise, and silence, between what can be spoken and what cannot. Ana María Ochoa Gautier writes that "one of the characteristics of violence is the redefinition of acoustic space." Anna Papaeti takes up the implications of this redefinition in her essay, examining how music has been used for torture. She reflects on trauma inflicted by sound and music in detention contexts and on the ethical dimension inherent in listening to victims' testimony.

Boundaries between vocality, noise, and silence also preoccupy Sarah Kay in her analysis of the sirventes by Bertran de Born, one of the most famous troubadours of the second half of the 12th century—who also appears in Dante's Inferno. Using the Lacanian concept of "extimacy," Kay examines how these political songs about love and war mediate noise and music, reshaping how poets transmitted subjects of love and death.

Martin Daughtry calls for moving beyond anthropocentric views of musical activity, questioning the conceptual frameworks that reinforce what he identifies as a driver of modern violence: the nature-culture dichotomy. That Dante condemned Bertran de Born to carry his severed head "suspended by the hair like a lantern" in the eighth circle of Hell precisely because the troubadour had separated what should remain together offers a haunting image of division and its costs.

Listening to these sonic traces can raise profound ethical concerns when researchers work with individuals who actively participated in wartime atrocities. Hettie Malcomson addresses this issue directly, arguing for respect—of humanity and subjectivity—and for avoiding sensationalism throughout the process of knowledge production.

Agency through sound and music

A key premise runs through the contributions to this issue: sound and music are studied not as the cause of violent action, but as symbolic resources that individuals mobilize in dynamics of violence.

Music can serve as a means of projecting strength, structuring conflict, and preparing antagonistic encounters. The cultural imaginary a piece conveys, alongside its sonic qualities, can be harnessed by actors as they prepare for confrontation, whether real or imagined. Victor A. Stoichita explores this hypothesis in his article on the listening experiences of American soldiers and Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik. He shows how the perceived ability of sound and music to start a causal chain—the listener's assumption that sounds can "transform" the world they inhabit—connects closely with the ontology of listening itself. Cornelia Nuxoll investigates further aspects of musical agency in her essay on fieldwork with former combatants from the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone. Her observations point to the emotional ambiguity surrounding music in dynamics of violence, as well as in processes of disarmament.

The interview conducted with Jean-Marc Rouillan offers a perspective from inside political violence. A founding member of the armed revolutionary group Action directe (1977–1987), Rouillan recounts how his political engagement around 1968 was preceded by musical involvement, a period of anticipation before more direct confrontation with the state. Rock and punk listening served as catalysts, channelling demands for freedom and autonomous political action. Three critical commentaries follow, by Matthew Worley, Timothy Scott Brown, and Jeremy Varon. These texts challenge, contextualize, or deepen the positions and events Rouillan presents, offering counterpoints on the relationship between music and political memory, punk's search for autonomy, and rock's entanglement with commodification.

Morag J. Grant notes that "long after the ceasefire, music continues to play a foundational role in celebrating or commemorating wars and warriors, serving as a toolkit for collective memory—a toolkit that, all too often, gets mobilized in service of future wars." By exploring the links between sound, music, and violence, this issue asks how human societies conceive themselves, build shared memory, and imagine what lies ahead.

Victor A. Stoichita, « Musicopathies. La musique est-elle bonne pour la santé ? », Terrain, n° 68, 2017, p. 4-25 ; Juliette Volcler, Le son comme arme : les usages policiers et militaires du son, Paris, La Découverte, 2011.

Pour des études détaillées, voir par exemple Suzanne G. Cusick, « “You are in a place that is out of the world…”: Music in the Detention Camps of the “Global War on Terror” », Journal of the Society for American Music, vol. 2, n° 1, 2008, p. 1-26 ; J. Martin Daughtry, Listening to War: Sound, Music, Trauma, and Survival in Wartime Iraq, New York, Oxford University Press, 2015 ; Lisa Gilman, My Music, my War: The Listening Habits of U.S. Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, Middletown, Wesleyan University Press, 2016 ; Jonathan Pieslak, Sound Targets: American Soldiers and Music in the Iraq War, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2009.

Voir également Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau, Esteban Buch, Myriam Chimènes et Georgie Durosoir (dir.), La Grande Guerre des musiciens, Lyon, Symétrie, 2009 ; Carolyn Birdsall, Nazi Soundscapes: Sound, Technology and Urban Space in Germany, 1933-1945, Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2012 ; Annegret Fauser, Sounds of War: Music in the United States during World War II, New York, Oxford University Press, 2013 ; Kassandra Hartford, « Listening to the Din of the First World War », Sound Studies, vol. 3, n° 2, 2017, p. 98-114 ; Martin, « Paysage endivisionné... » ; Rachel Moore, Performing Propaganda ; Élise Petit, Musique et politique en Allemagne : du IIIe Reich à l’aube de la guerre froide.

Pour d’autres exemples, cf. M. J. Grant et Anna Papaeti (dir.), « Music and Torture | Music and Punishment », The World of Music, vol. 2, n° 1, 2013 ; Martin, « “What Scenes! – What Sounds!”... » ; Ana María Ochoa Gautier, « El silencio como armamento sonoro » ; Jim Sykes, « Ontologies of Acoustic Endurance... » ; Gavin Williams (dir.), Hearing the Crimean War.

The complete programme can be viewed at https://agenda.unifr.ch/e/fr/4349.

I would like to extend my gratitude to the authors who contributed to this special issue for their generosity and patience. I also thank the anonymous reviewers whose comments and suggestions helped improve the texts. Finally, I express my appreciation to the editorial board of Transposition for their support of this project, as well as to colleagues and friends who hosted my research at the University of Fribourg, the Fondation Maison des sciences de l’homme (FMSH), and the University of Bern.

As Timothy Rice notes, this field examines how people experience violence and displacement through music [15] (p. 192 [16]). Martin Daughtry contends that soundscapes in wartime are “endivisionné” — divided and territorialized through acoustic boundaries [17]. In his own words, “Long after ceasefire, music continues to play an oftentimes fundamental role in celebrating or commemorating wars and warriors, thus functioning as a fundamental toolkit for collective".

memory which itself, all too often, becomes mobilised in the service of wars yet to come." — Morag Josephine Grant, « On Music and War » [39].

Studies such as those by Michael Guida on nature’s sonic order during World War I [20] and John Morgan O’Connell on “sound bites” as acts of violence [21] deepen this analysis. Research by Jim Sykes on ontologies of acoustic endurance, Joshua D. Pilzer on songs of Korean “comfort women” survivors, and Luis Velasco-Pufleau on the appropriation and transformation of sonic experiences of extreme violence further illustrates these dynamics [22]. Nikita Hock investigates how Warsaw and East Galician Jews in subterranean shelters used sound to make sense of their surroundings during the Holocaust [23].

Ana María Ochoa Gautier calls for “an acoustically tuned exploration of the written archive” [24] (p. 3). Annegret Fauser demonstrates how listening from the archive can reveal the entanglements of sound, music, war, and violence [25]. Violence, as Evans and Lennard define it, “is always an attack upon a person’s dignity, sense of selfhood, and future” [26] (p. 3). One characteristic of violence, as Ochoa Gautier observes, is “la redefinición del espacio acústico” (a redefinition of the acoustic space) [27].

Anna Papaeti reflects on the challenges of researching music in contexts of torture and detention [28]. Sarah Kay examines the medieval trobadour’s voice as a weapon in songs of war [29], while J. Martin Daughtry questions whether music itself can cause the end of the world [30]. Elsewhere, Dante writes about the sounds of the afterlife as a form of cosmic punishment, a literary example that scholars return to repeatedly [31] (p. 259). Hettie Malcomson warns against sensationalism in representing academic knowledge about violence [32]. Victor A. Stoichita considers the “affordance to kill” and the auditory experiences of a Norwegian terrorist and American soldiers [33]. Cornelia Broll tests the notion of music as a culprit or accomplice in the Sierra Leone war [34]. Luis Velasco-Pufleau interviews Jean-Marc Rouillan about the path from music to armed struggle, from 1968 to Action Directe [35], and Matthew Worley comments on that conversation [36]. Timothy Scott Brown traces the politics of free music around 1968 [37], while Jeremy Varon reflects on revolutionaries and their engagement with music [38].

Listening can become a tool for exploration, engagement, and sensorial knowledge of the world. Music can project, frame, and prepare for confrontation with the enemy. How does studying sound and music help us understand collective violence and war? Conversely, how does the study of war and collective violence illuminate the significance of musical practices and listening for human beings? This special issue of Transposition explores these questions through an analysis of the connections between sound, music, and violence.

Keywords: agency, auditory regime, Dante, listening, music, sound, violence, war.

LUIS VELASCO-PUFLEAU

A musicologist and sound artist, Luis Velasco-Pufleau is a researcher at the Walter Benjamin Kolleg and the Institute of Musicology at the University of Bern. His work constitutes a critical reflection on the links between music and politics in contemporary societies. As a researcher and sound artist, he explores innovative forms of writing at the crossroads of artistic creation and research in the humanities and social sciences.