Abstract

On the basis of a political cartoon from ›Le Monde‹, the text analyzes how improvisation intervenes in and shapes social structures. The cartoon quotes a fifteenth-century drawing that depicts a practice of polyphonic vocal improvisation, bringing together multiple layers of intertextual irony. In response to competitive mechanisms in international university rankings in 2020, the newspaper article highlights the precarious interaction between European traditions and insensitive evaluation standards. The cartoon goes far beyond this in the density of its allusions and the richness of its musical details: in the intertwining of improvisational logic as the basis of polyphonic music-making on the one hand and social processes on the other, aesthetic categories turn into political ones and vice versa. The turning point, however, is the media representation of artistic and social practice.