From rothfarb@boethius.music.ucsb.edu Mon Jan 29 21:50:50 1996 Received: from boethius.music.ucsb.edu (boethius.music.ucsb.edu [128.111.94.30]) by orion.sas.upenn.edu (8.7.3/SAS 8.05) with ESMTP id VAA10038 for ; Mon, 29 Jan 1996 21:50:43 -0500 (EST) Posted-Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 21:50:43 -0500 (EST) Received-Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 21:50:43 -0500 (EST) Received: (from rothfarb@localhost) by boethius.music.ucsb.edu (8.7.1/8.7.1) id SAA15870; Mon, 29 Jan 1996 18:45:32 -0800 (PST) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 18:45:24 -0800 (PST) From: Lee Rothfarb To: Robert Judd Subject: mto.current Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: O === === ============= ==== === === == == == == == ==== == == = == ==== === == == == == == == == = == == == == == == == == == ==== M U S I C T H E O R Y O N L I N E A Publication of the Society for Music Theory Copyright (c) 1996 Society for Music Theory +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Volume 2, Number 1 January, 1996 ISSN: 1067-3040 | +-------------------------------------------------------------+ General Editor Lee Rothfarb Co-Editors Dave Headlam Justin London Ann McNamee Reviews Editor Brian Alegant Manager Robert Judd Consulting Editors Bo Alphonce Thomas Mathiesen Jonathan Bernard Benito Rivera John Clough John Rothgeb Nicholas Cook Arvid Vollsnes Allen Forte Robert Wason Marianne Kielian-Gilbert Gary Wittlich Stephen Hinton Editorial Assistants Ralph Steffen Cindy Nicholson Nicholas Blanchard Musical Example Designer William Loewe All queries to: mto-editor@boethius.music.ucsb.edu or to mto-manager@boethius.music.ucsb.edu +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ 1. Target Article AUTHOR: Littlefield, Richard, C. TITLE: The Silence of the Frames KEYWORDS: aesthetics, analysis, context, semiotics, silence, frame, Cone, Kant, Derrida Richard C. Littlefield Baylor University School of Music Waco, TX 76798 Richard_Littlefield@baylor.edu ABSTRACT: This essay concerns the edges of musical works, and how those edges are made possible by various frames, especially that of silence. Silence as musical frame is viewed as an index of the more general issue of aesthetic framing. I approach that issue via a reading of Edward Cone's theory of framing silence, as viewed through the aesthetic theories of Immanuel Kant and Jacques Derrida. From that reading I derive a typology of silence as musical frame. That typology is used to effect a reversal of hierarchy in some commonly accepted aesthetic oppositions (such as sound/silence and work/non-work). ACCOMPANYING FILES: mto.96.2.1.littlfd1.gif (Figure 1) mto.96.2.1.littlfd2.gif (Figure 2) mto.96.2.1.littlfd3.gif (Figure 3) mto.96.2.1.littlfd4.gif (Example 1) 1. Introduction [1.1] In the course of deconstructing Kant's *Critique of Pure Judgment*, Jacques Derrida questions Kant's evaluation of the picture frame as mere ornamentation to the art-work proper.(1) Fastening on details that escape Kant's notice, Derrida ascribes some interesting functions to the frames. Though he does not explore the possibility, it seems to me that these framing functions might apply to musical as well as visual art, and help answer the main question of the present essay, What goes on at the borders of a musical work?(2) ================================================= 1. Jacques Derrida, "Parergon," a chapter in his *The Truth in Painting*, trans. Geoff Bennington and Ian McLeod (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987); henceforth called TIP. References to the *Critique of Pure Judgment* are to Kant as quoted in TIP. 2. This essay is an expanded and revised version of a paper presented at the Summer Congresses of the International Semiotics Institute at Imatra, Finland, 18 July 1992. ================================================= [1.2] The subject of musical borders leads to the more general aesthetic issue of how art is contextualized such that it appears as a "work." (This last is taken here in its commonly accepted definition, at least since the Renaissance, of an "opus perfectum et absolutum"--a finished man-made product, a self-sufficient entity sui generis that exists beyond the place and time of its creation.) Locating the work is crucial, for in order to get on with analysis, criticism, and the like, one must decide precisely what is work and what is non-work. It seems safe to say that most analyses of musical structure usually proceed as Alice was told to do: they begin at the beginning and go on to the end. This common-sense attitude toward the given-ness of a musical work's limits, however, is rarely theorized from an aesthetic point of view.(3) Enter the present essay. Here I approach the issue of aesthetic musical context via a typology of the musical frame of silence. ================================================= 3. Here, the term "aesthetic" is intended in its traditional and technical (Romantic) sense of a systematic theory of art, and especially of art that typifies "the Beautiful" (discussed below). For a cogent elucidation of the history of aesthetics, from its inception in the mid-1700s to its more utopian construal in the late nineteenth century, see Tzvetan Todorov, *Theories of the Symbol* (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982), chap. 6. I discuss elsewhere some of the ideological impact that aesthetics has on musical values, in Richard Littlefield and David Neumeyer, "Rewriting Schenker: Narrative-History-Ideology," *Music Theory Spectrum* 14/1 (1992): 38-65. ================================================= [1.3] Mention of how music is contextualized might lead one to expect a discussion of musical ontology. A massive literature on that topic runs (at least) from Sextus Empiricus's skeptical dictum that music does not exist--because it must exist in time; but time does not exist, thus neither can music--to modern studies in cognition and psychology--which understand music as primarily a mental construct --to essentialist views of music, which take the art-work as a reification or hypostasis of the composer's thought, of emotive or psychological processes, of social structures, of "absolute" musical processes, and so on.(4) Such ontic investigations are extremely important, inasmuch as they elucidate the conditions of possibility for anything called "music" to exist; and a thorough study of aesthetic frames would have to make such an excursus. Such transcendental quests, however, lead to questions of the place of music in general knowledge rather than the more limited aesthetic issues that interest me here. Thus any ontological issues touched on here will be done so in passing. ================================================= 4. Sextus Empiricus, *Against the Musicians*, trans. Denise Greaves (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986 [2nd century A.D.]). For a recent gestaltist ontology of music, see Roman Ingarden's *The Work of Music and the Problem of Its Identity* (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986). For Ingarden, and for Leonard Meyer before him, music exists fundamentally in the "communion" between listener and a concrete sounding object. Ingarden's study should be taken as only a recent, and not necessarily representative, example from a vast literature on music cognition and psychology, which I have neither the space nor the expertise to deal with here. For an interesting construal of "art" as a totally subjective mental phenomenon, see Morse Peckham, *Man's Rage for Chaos: Biology, Behavior, and the Arts* (Philadelphia: Chilton Books, 1965). Essentialist views of music are manifold; for recent representative examples post-dating the Pythagorean conception of music as sounding number, see Schenker's writings, Edward Cone's *The Composer's Voice* (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974); on this issue in literary interpretation, see E. D. Hirsch Jr., *The Aims of Interpretation* (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976). ================================================= [1.4] Another approach to musical framing is found in analyses of musical closure. For one, Patrick McCreless has theorized different types of closure in tonal music. For another, Naomi Cumming discusses "syntactic frames," such as phrase and period endings, with regard to their effect on a perceiving subject.(5) These studies, and others like them, shed light on one of the most salient features of musical structure. They do not, however, ask questions about how that structure is taken to be there in the first place, nor how types of framing make musical structures appear as a "work." Therefore discussion of syntactic framing will not be considered here, though in the "ideal" study of how syntactic and extra-syntactic frames wed, such discussion would be mandatory. ================================================= 5. Patrick McCreless, "The Hermeneutic Sentence and Other Literary Models for Tonal Closure," *Indiana Theory Review* 12 (1991), 35-73; the author advances a theory of three types of musical closure-- syntactic, poetic, and rhetorical--and his article contains a rich bibliography of other studies on musical closure. Naomi Cumming, "The Subjectivities of 'Erbarme Dich'," unpublished ms., 1995; excerpts read at the National Meeting of the Society for Music Theory, New York, 2 November 1995. ================================================= [1.5] In contrast to studies of intramusical framing such as those of closure, much recent writing on musical context stresses the extramusical dimension of things such as socio-cultural, institutional, and pedagogical factors. For example, one recent publication contains an entire section of essays on musical contexts. Among the authors are Charles Hamm (on social contexts of listening that affect musical reception), Peter Rabinowitz (on how verbal texts help cultivate listening habits), John Neubauer (on academic and other institutional contexts of listening), and Ruth Solie (on patriarchy's use of music to advance its cause).(6) These and other such studies of extramusical context serve as valuable reminders that boundaries between music and non-music are artificial at best; and the writers just mentioned generally understand music to be a phenomenological datum whose borders vary according to who hears it and the competencies those listeners possess. It is not surprising that writers who embrace this antiessentialist view of music tend to eschew detailed structural analysis of the work "itself," and instead focus on what music *does* rather than what it *is*. I accept the logic of this antiessentialist view, but will provisionally accept the idea that something like music exists in and of itself. Not to accept it would end my essay here, since aesthetics arises in response to the notion that (something people call) "beautiful" art exists. ================================================= 6. The mentioned essays are in Steven P. Scher, ed., *Music and Text: Critical Inquiries* (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1992). A more thorough critique of theories of musical context appears in my review of *Music and Text*, in *Journal of Music Theory* 38/2 (1994), 343-53. There exists quite a large body of literature on discursive framing, in real life and in literature. A recent example of the latter is Marie-Laure Ryan, "On the Window Structure of Narrative Discourse," *Semiotica* 64/1-2 (1987): 59-81; Ryan construes narrative according to the metaphor of the computer window as frame for the fictional world. On the framing of real-life conversations, see William Labov's *Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English Vernacular* (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1972). How insights from verbal discourse studies would play into theories of aesthetic framing deserves thought, which would of course far exceed the scope of this article. ================================================= [1.6] Also, possibly relevant to the present essay would be music and writings by John Cage ("There is no such thing as silence") and Toru Takemitsu (silence as a sign of death).(7) Both of these writers have brought us great insight into Eastern ways of understanding sound, music, and all of life. But because they proceed from such a fundamentally different epistemology than that of the West, to weave their conceptions of silence and music into an essay concerned with European aesthetics would require a much longer format than the present one. Thus Cage's silence-as-ambient-noise and Takemitsu's silence-as-death must also await future study. ================================================= 7. John Cage, *Silence* (Middleton: Wesleyan University Press, 1961), 51. Toru Takemitsu, *Confronting Silence: Selected Writings* (Berkeley: Fallen Leaf Press, 1995). ================================================= [1.7] Instead of approaching the subject of silence as aesthetic frame via the possible routes just outlined in paragraphs 3-6, I shall instead look at Edward Cone's attempt to answer aesthetic questions about the context of musical art-works in his classic *Musical Form and Musical Performance*.(8) There Cone advances a theory of silence as musical frame, and my paper picks up where Cone's leaves off, so to speak. Here I view Cone's theory through the "lens" of Derrida/Kant, using their writings as a framework or foil by which to (re)read Cone. ================================================= 8. Edward T. Cone, *Musical Form and Musical Performance* (New York: Norton, 1966); henceforth referred to as MFMP. ================================================= [1.8] The remainder of this essay will proceed as follows: First, I shall look at Derrida's views of aesthetic frames and framing, arrived at in his reading of Kant. Combining Derrida's views with Kant's, I derive a set of four self-negating framing functions that characterize and define any and all artistic frames. Second, I use those functions to interpret Cone's theory of silence-as-musical-frame. In brief, my interpretation effects a reversal of certain oppositions between music/silence, such that the "unprivileged" (rightmost) term is shown to be a condition of possibility for or constitutive of the former. I close with a few comments about how aesthetic frame theory, as interpreted by my reading of Cone, might be useful for analysis and pertinent to the construction of a music aesthetic. 2. Frame and Framing: Kant and Derrida [2.1] In the section of his *Critique of Judgment* entitled "Analytic of the Beautiful" (itself Book I of "The Analytic of Aesthetic Judgment"), Kant describes the picture frame as a mere ornament (parergon) to the painting itself. He classifies the frame among ornaments that do not belong to the internal properties of the work (ergon) of art, even though such external trappings as picture frames and draperies or clothes on statues do attach to the work proper. Why does Kant need to make this distinction? As noted above, in order for analysis of anything called art to take place--and thus for aesthetics to be possible--it is crucial to define the proper, intrinsic object of critical attention. Derrida calls this determination "a permanent requirement [that] organizes all philosophical discourses on art . . ." (TIP, 45). For Kant and his critical lineage (which we shall see includes Edward Cone) that object is "beautiful form." Such form is autonomous, organic, and autotelic, that is, seemingly goal-directed, but with no use in the "outside" world, and with no goal beyond simply being itself. Kant's "free beauty" (the best kind) signifies nothing, shows nothing, represents nothing. As a token of such beauty, music is the "play of sensations in time," whose "design [i.e., form] constitute[s] the proper object of the pure judgment of taste" (Kant quoted in TIP, 52-53). Now that which frames any art-work whatsoever, if it is a good frame, should not be considered part of the work itself, though it might help the work along; the frame performs secondary tasks (Nebengeschaefte). The good frame calls attention neither to itself nor to the object it surrounds; rather, it enters modestly into the composition of beautiful form and should be conceived as participating in that form, though not to any essential degree. The bad frame, on the other hand, is base ornamentation or finery (Schmuck), which takes attention away from pure beauty, and tries to "win approval for the picture by means of its charm" (Kant quoted in TIP, 53 and 64). For Kant, the frame, good or bad, erases itself, so to speak, in that it plays no part in aesthetic considerations of the work proper. [2.2] Now Derrida suggests that Kant's exclusion of the frame from evaluations of pure beauty is something of a swindle, because Kant tries to introduce a logical framework that makes it possible to distinguish work from non-work. For this task, Kant borrows categories from his *Critique of Pure Reason*, and these categories are irrelevant to the discussion at hand--irrelevant because, according to Kant, aesthetics concerns the senses, not the intellect. (We shall return to this problem toward the end of this essay, after watching the same kind of conceptual frame-job bolster Cone's theory of musical silence.) Derrida goes on to show that the frame can be understood not only as mere ornament, but as that which makes possible the work itself, through action that separates the so-called beautiful form from a general context or milieu. For Derrida, the frame responds to and signifies a lack within the work itself (TIP, 65). This lack makes framing necessary, not just ornamental and contingent, as Kant would have it. In effect, Derrida reverses the hierarchical opposition established by Kant, that of work/non-work. He does so, however, not by establishing a new opposition of non-work/work, but rather by construing the oppositions involved as a set of paradoxes.(9) ================================================= 9. Those well-read in Deconstruction will find my usage of Derrida's (anti)concepts to be a pale shadow of the originals. Such domestication (or emasculation) of Derrida's powerful readings is commonplace in music studies, and in my view unavoidable, because beyond their province of Philosophy and the Logos, Derrida's "interventions" lose their capacity to instill what some describe as "vertiginous" effects in the reader, and fail to signify effectively in Western thought processes and social structures. Furthermore, to reduce Derrida's ideas to simple analytic or heuristic "tools" robs them of their subtle complexity--they simply are not amenable to summary. On the other hand, Derrida's readings cannot be overlooked altogether, given their profound effect on epistemology in all art studies in the wake of formalism(s). Thus we shall probably see more taming of Derrida in future, more reduction and transformation of his thought into "tools" for music analysis. Perhaps the closest thing to what a Derridean musical deconstruction might look like occurs in some writings of Lawrence Kramer; see his *Music as Cultural Practice, 1800-1900* (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), chap. 6; and his "Musical Narratology: A Theoretical Outline," *Indiana Theory Review* 12/1-2 (1991), 141-62. See also Robert Snarrenberg, "The Play of 'Differance'," *In Theory Only* 10/3 (1987), 1-25; and Robert Samuels' illuminating critique of that essay, in his "Derrida and Snarrenberg," *In Theory Only* 11/1-2 (1989), 45-58; Samuels makes some of the same points as I do about the desiccation of Derrida, but in a far more detailed fashion than is possible for me to do here. For a brilliant de Manian deconstruction of some writings about music, see Alan Street, "Superior Myths, Dogmatic Allegories: The Resistance to Musical Unity," *Music Analysis* 8/1-2 (1989), 77-123. ================================================= [2.3] Four of these paradoxical functions of the frame are listed at the bottom of Figure 1. First, the frame separates the work from its context. In doing so, the frame enshrines an object, thereby bringing it to our attention as beautiful form or "art." The frame provides us with an object that can have intrinsic content. Second, and at the same time, in any analysis of pure beauty, the frame must not be considered part of the art work, even though physically attached to it. Thus the frame also separates the work from the frame itself. To summarize: in relation to the work, the frame seems to disappear into the general context (such as a museum wall); in relation to the general context, the frame disappears into the work. Therefore the frame belongs fully to neither work nor external context; it has no place of its own. Only framing effects occur, which are not to be confused with the frame itself: "There is framing," says Derrida, "but the frame does not exist" (TIP, 39). [2.4] Functions 3 and 4 on Figure 1 are corollaries to this ambiguous ontology. Third: the frame comes to be viewed as contingent, as mere ornament. Fourth: at the same time, the frame must be considered necessary, since it functions to constitute the work. The frame *defines* the work by *confining* it. This is a paradox in the rigorous sense; the frame is not contingent *or* necessary, but both contingent *and* necessary at one and the same time. It is impossible to decide logically where the borders of the frame stop and the work begins or where the borders of the work stop and the frame begins. [2.5] Yet as analysts we regularly decide anyway, rarely taking the time to theorize where works "really" begin and end. For a notable exception to this practice, and keeping in mind the four framing functions outlined above, I now turn to Edward Cone's theory of silence as frame. 3. Silence as Musical Frame [3.1] In his chapter on the "The Picture and the Frame," Cone elegantly rearticulates Kant's notions of pure beauty, and how the latter must be separated from things external to itself: "The frame of a picture . . . marks the limits not only of the picture, but also of the real world around the picture. . . . First, it separates the subject chosen for treatment from its own imagined surroundings. . . ; second, it protects the work from the encroachment of its *external environment*. . ." (MFMP, 14-15; Cone's emphasis). Cone goes on to note that, unlike painting, music has no "internal environment"; by this he means that music essentially has no representational content as does narrative, painting, sculpture, and the like. Nevertheless "music stands in great need of a frame to separate it from its external environment" (MFMP, 16). That frame is silence.(10) For Cone, in musical performance, silence as a type is instantiated by token silences that play a variety of framing roles. We shall now look at the individual functions of framing silence according to Cone, and also consider a few silences he omits. ================================================= 10. Of course silence is not the only musical frame. As Cone points out, certain types of introductions and postludes can have framing effects, as defined by our four functions (MFMP, 23-24). More abstractly, a composer's signature can frame a work, by delimiting audience expectations, establishing ownership, and separating it from works of other composers. Discourse about music can frame its reception. When literary genres--for instance, epic (such as Schenker's hero "Artist" in his *Harmonielehre*) and "neutral reportage"--are used to frame musicological arguments, they can produce auras of authority and reality, respectively. Also, the borders of musical works change over time and according to performance context. For example, a Machaut mass may be framed as a concert piece, whereas it once served to frame church liturgy. Today it seems that Satie's dream of music as furniture has come true. Music, no longer made to be listened to, serves as a frame that keeps out the so-called real world. This is evident from the omnipresence of music as background, in stores, restaurants, markets, and in the popularity of Walkman headsets. But the issue of musical frames changing over time is more an issue for cultural semiotics than for the present discussion. ================================================= [3.2] To help visualize these frames, Figure 2 gives an oscillograph-like representation of music in action, and shows framing silences that lie at the music's "edges." Along the horizontal axis, sounds appear in time; the vertical axis shows the musical highs and lows in terms of pitch space or frequency. Silences A and B represent the horizontal borders of a sounding piece of music, and each has a different function. The beginning silence, A, is that moment in which "*nothing* should be happening" (MFMP, 16; Cone's emphasis). It mutely announces: "Here the real world leaves off and the work of art begins; here the work of art ends and the real world takes up again" (MFMP, 15). In a typical concert situation, this silence usually precedes a conductor's first gesture. [3.3] Cone's italicized "nothing," however, should alert us that *something* is going on here. The beginning silence serves as a call to attention; it focalizes the listener toward what will follow; it finalizes a milieu. These are of course phenomenological attributions. And yet that silence *is* heard, even empirically. The beginning silence has a propulsive quality, a sense of Doing.(11) It is modalized, or charged with moods, by the audience's expectations of what will follow, even if what follows is unknown to the listener. Out of this silence the music "officially" begins. This initial modalization can be affected by the conductor's first gesture, which serves as a visual cue that further pre-modalizes the sounds to come. For example, the "silent" down-beat to the opening of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony calls forth high energy in preparation for the urgent motive that follows. On the other hand, the conductor's first gesture can imbue the propulsive beginning silence with a feeling of relaxation, of Being, as would be appropriate, say, for the pastoral opening of Sibelius's Second Symphony. In such cases, Cone speculates, "perhaps some of the silence [once called *the*, as in only, frame by Cone] immediately before . . . a composition is actually a part, not of the frame, but of the work itself" (MFMP, 17-18). This is Kant's "good" ornamentation: a frame that participates in the work itself. Yet does this not suggest that the work proper somehow depends on the frame, or that in certain cases the frame does not depend on the work itself but rather forms a part of it? Recall that, in this (Romantic) aesthetic, which treasures organicism as a sign of good art (pure beauty), anything extraneous or unnecessary to the beautiful form is considered a flaw. Thus for the ornament to take part in the work proper either makes that ornament more-than-ornament or makes the work proper something less than proper. Or at least, as Derrida suggests, some confusion arises between inner and outer, between frame and framed--something "abyssal," where "the smallest circle [inscribes] in itself the figure of the largest" and does so ad infinitum (TIP, 27). ================================================= 11. The capitalization of certain verbs designates them as technical terms in "modal logic," which formalizes the processes of certain modalities, or subjunctive linguistic moods; such verbs include Willing, Wanting, Needing, and so on. Eero Tarasti incorporates the modal logic of semioticians and logicians, such as A. J. Greimas and Henryk von Wright respectively, and musicologist Charles Seeger in his theory of musical semiotics. Among other things, Tarasti's theory accounts for the interaction of certain modal states either induced or exemplified by tonal and rhythmic structures. See Tarasti, *A Theory of Musical Semiotics* (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995). On the modalities in general semiotics, see A. J. Greimas and Jacques Fontanille, *The Semiotics of Passions* (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), esp. 1-43. ================================================= [3.4] We have not yet exhausted the richness in function of the beginning edge of the "silent" frame. Figure 3 shows some possible interpretations of a beginning musical silence. In semiotic terms, if one takes the beginning silence as a sign, it might generate the chain of interpretations shown as an idealized hearing. As a type, it forms an iconic, or similarity, relationship with all the interior silences to follow in the piece. The beginning silence also functions symbolically, since as a call-to-attention it is established by conventions and protocols of concert-going rather than by any inherent property it might have. And on the principle of contiguity, it serves as an index in relation to the music that follows, inasmuch as both sound and silence share the property of duration. Figure 3 also suggests that, at some indefinable point, the beginning silence becomes part of the music itself. The frame has erased itself and yet it was as "there" as any note was. A part of the general context has contaminated or become part of that which is to be understood as self-sufficient, proper only to itself. It is impossible to say exactly where contextual, ambient silence becomes part of the work proper (we have reached one of Cage's conclusions, but via a different route). Further, the idealized hearing shown in Figure 3 gives only possible interpretations and assumes much that we cannot take for granted, such as our hearing in an "orderly," or serial, fashion instead of projecting backwards and forwards. And we haven't yet mentioned noise from the general context that might contaminate the frame itself (such as talkers, the crackling of candy wrappers, and so on). In this case another reversal occurs, where, in order to listen with Kant's/Cone's ears, we must construe the sound as silence so that the silence we construe as sounding--part of the work proper--can be "heard." [3.5] Silence B of Figure 2, the ending border of the music, may be qualified as mainly absorptive, because it captures and dispels the energy of the preceding sounds. This ending silence protects us from the shock of "our return to ordinary time" and should not be intruded on too quickly with applause, lest its function be thwarted (MFMP, 16). The ideal duration of this ending silence will depend on the energy level of the foregoing sounds and their lingering effects on our memory. For example, the silence that frames the end of Debussy's "Clair de lune" takes little time to dispel the low energy of the preceding music. In contrast, the bombastic chords that end Sibelius's Fifth Symphony seem to hammer away long after they are gone, and require a lengthy silence to dissipate their force. Silence B can also have a propulsive quality, as silence A, when occurring in multi-movement constructs such as suites, symphonies, and concertos. In these cases and others, silences between movements can also prepare, delimit, or point to what follows. As Cone says, these "moments [of silence] represent frame, like the intermediate frames of a triptych" (MFMP, 17). For instance, the silence after the first movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony can be very passive, if one is thinking ahead to the tranquil theme of the second movement. Another example would be the active silence that occurs just after the Introduction to Stravinsky's *Rite of Spring*, right before the "Danse des adolescentes" begins. The quality or mood of a silence between movements will also depend on how long the conductor makes the silence. A framing effect might be lost between movements, if the succeeding movement is begun to soon, without enough time in between for the previous music to leave the memory. In that case, does framing occur? Once the new movement is underway, will there be a retrospective imposition of frame? And will that frame be silent? Given all these questions about the silent frames or the framing silences, it begins to seem that, in all rigor, they cannot be classified as mere ornament, as somehow less essential than that which they frame. [3.6] We have considered beginning and ending silences as frames. Are there other, perhaps internal, frames? Cone does not think so; rather, he construes certain types of non-silences (i.e., sounds) such as preludes and postludes, the "extremes of a composition," as frames (MFMP, 22). Yet framing silences do not take place only at "beginnings" and "endings" (the scare quotes should need no explanation by now); they also occur, at least potentially, within the music itself. For instance, in the aria "La donna e mobile" from Act 4 of Verdi's *Rigoletto*, a fermata appears over one silent measure of rest during the instrumental that follows the first verse (see Example 1). If the conductor makes this rest last long enough, the interior silence might generate the interpretation of a "new beginning." (An easy way to test this reading is to play the interlude, first giving the fermata a duration of five or six beats, to hear the silence as an interruption; then ten or eleven beats, to hear the pause as a new beginning.) Where emphasized, internal silences tend to be heard as interruptions of continuity, and indeed, almost reverse the accepted hierarchy in the opposition sound/silence. I return to questions of reversed hierarchy at the end of this paper; for now, let's continue with our typology of frames. [3.7] Referring again to Figure 2, you will notice bordering silences also in the vertical (registral) dimension. These vertical borders of the frame are mentioned by neither Cone nor Kant. Yet we clearly have at least two ways of construing these kinds of framing silence, which are more empirically silent than silences at either the beginning or the ending: First, silences C and D lie at the limits of human hearing capacity. These borders are normative and what we may call "natural," because they are determined by physical limitation and the infinite range of possible sound vibrations. (Incidentally, the fact that silences C and D are "natural" would seem to qualify them as inherently beautiful, in Kant's/Cone's aesthetics; for the Romantic view included first and foremost among the defining traits of beauty those processes most akin to those found in Nature; hence, the prizing of "organicism" and all that term entails.) Second, the tones of the piece itself can determine vertical borders. The highest and lowest pitches establish borders that confine a piece of music to a certain registral space. Unlike the silence that occurs at the limits of human hearing capacity, the highs and lows produced by the piece itself are constrained by conventions of musical style and genre, and by the physical and mechanical limitations of instruments and/or voices used. In this case, the work itself acknowledges or compensates for its own framing silences, which the highest and lowest pitches "fend off." Another reversal of function takes place: instead of the imposition of frame from the "outside" (silence, lowered lights, conductor's gesture, etc.), the framing occurs from the "inside," by the work itself. The inside does the job of the outside in order for the inside to appear to be framed by the outside--a strange yet necessary illusion if something like a "work of music" is to be said to exist. [3.8] The "vertical," or registral, silences (C and D) differ from the "horizontal," or temporal, silences (A and B). The duration of the work will always be determined by convention, whether the piece is an eight-hour improvisation on an Indian tala or a little Mozart minuet. The horizontal unfolding in time has no "natural" border, as silences C and D have. The beginning and ending silences are not limited by hearing ability and so on, but only by conventions of performance practice and received or earned preference. Thus, while the horizontal silences are contingent, the vertical borders are fixed and necessary, participating in the work, in Kant's terms, and not serving as mere finery. They are essentially sounding silences, in Cone's sense, mute to the senses yet essential for the "work" to be heard. Similar to framing silences C and D would be those of "depth" --silences that operate "front to back," so to speak, and that add a third dimension to Figure 2. Such a framing silence would consist of a front/back or depth relation between listener and work. Where and how these frames of depth operate would depend on physical features of the room or concert hall, the position of the listener in relation to the sound source, and so on. This front/back silence would have a quasi beginning/ending function, on the tree-falling-in-the-forest principle that sound waves start and end when they reach the audial membranes of the inner ear. [3.9] Other speculation on how depth silence might frame music, as well as on the typology of framing silences, I leave to the reader, assuming he or she has been persuaded that silence is worth consideration. It is time now to look further into Cone's aesthetic, the place of the frame therein, and the conceptual framework on which his theory rests. [3.10] For Cone, framing silences give the musical act its own fictional world, despite the fact that that world has nothing to say and nothing to see; as noted before, music has no "internal environment" (representational or propositional content) of its own (MFMP, 16). Yet at least the illusion of such an internal content is necessary for music, as a temporal art, to establish its own, virtual time, in opposition to "ordinary time" (MFMP, 17). In this sense, framing silences of a musical act serve much the same purpose as the "once upon a time" and past-tense cues in narrative. Both establish the borders of a fictional setting in which the story (or music) unfolds. Why, then, if the frame is framing nothing to speak of, or nothing that can be expressed in words or pictures, why then does the music need the frame? To make it seem *as if* there were something to speak of. Music must provide us with (the illusion of) another, somehow better world, in Cone's/Kant's aesthetic, which is the Romantic world of the observer participating vicariously in the creative process of the artist. But this world is not accessible to just any ways of hearing it; rather, it is framed in the mental act of comprehension. [3.11] One gains access to this other world via two modes of "comprehension," which Cone calls the "immediate" and the "synoptic" (MFMP, 88-89). The former way of listening attunes itself to a sensible surface, apprehending events as they pass by; the second is a post-facto understanding of the piece in terms of causality and syntax. Now, by limiting the ways of hearing to only two, that is, by framing or setting his argument for music's need of a frame by allowing only those two possibilities, Cone sets the context of need --music's need for a frame--something to make its edges appear: ". . . if a piece of music is to qualify as a *work of art*, . . . as a real *composition*, not only must it have extremes [beginning and ending], but these must be generated by the music itself--and not solely by the exigencies of an external function" (MFMP, 13; Cone's emphasis). But may not the phenomenological categories of "immediate" and "synoptic" comprehension be understood precisely as "external functions" not at all "generated by the music itself"? These are categories the listener brings along, and by which he or she supplements, or makes up for, a lack in the work itself that by all Cone's and Kant's definitions must be self-sufficient and yet which, we have seen, needs a frame in order to exist as art. [3.12] It is not as if there were no other ways of listening to music. Pierre Schaeffer, for example, has proffered a third way, which he calls "reduced listening."(12) This mode of listening focuses on the traits of sound independent of their syntactic function and means of production, and forms a category that would make problematic Cone's assertion that music has no "internal environment." For if we concentrate on the sound itself instead of listening immediately or synoptically, we have all the content or internal environment we need. No future or past is necessary since no causality or entailment comes forth upon the discovery (or imposition) of structure by a "synoptic" mode of comprehension. "Reduced listening" has no need of beginnings and endings, and it cannot help us frame the work as heard, at least not a "work" in the sense given it by Cone and Kant and in the sense we are trying to understand here. ================================================= 12. Pierre Schaeffer, *Traite des objets musicaux* (Paris: Seuil, 1970), 270. ================================================ [3.13] I mention Cone's modes of listening not only as a matter of interest nor as a prelude to a phenomenological theory of framing, but rather to recall that a similar imposition of "external" categories prompted Derrida's questioning of Kant's aesthetics. As noted in section I of this essay, much of Derrida's dissertation on the frame concerns Kant's use of the "outside" framework of reason, which Kant had designated in his *Critique of Pure Reason* as playing no part in aesthetic judgments, to conceptualize the essentially aconceptual realm of feelings and taste. In Kant's aesthetics, says Derrida, "a logical frame is transposed and forced in to be imposed on a nonlogical structure" (TIP, 69). A similar move takes place in Cone: he calls in his two modes of listening at the same time as he returns the discussion, near the end of MFMP, to differences between art and non-art (88-96). The chapters in which the discussions of art versus non-art take place in fact frame what is usually understood to be the "content" of the book (a theory of rhythm as the basis of form). Like Kant, Cone is faced with a lack of categories, and must smuggle them in, disguised as mere accessories and ornament. When trying to define the edges of a work of content-less, nonrepresentational, labile and sounding art, Cone relies on the framing metaphor of "outside" structures of content-ed, representational, static and visual painting. He further calls in selected phenomenological categories of listening, in order to frame his own highly persuasive, if ultimately suspect, aesthetics. [3.14] At the risk of over-summarizing, I won't pursue further the congruences in logic between Cone's aesthetics and Kant's, though such a project would likely prove interesting. Instead let me close with a few general observations that seem to follow from the typology of framing silences and from the too-brief analysis just given them. I begin with a look at the treatment of silence in "normal" music analysis, and close with some remarks on framing silence, and on aesthetic frames in general. 4. Conclusion [4.1] In "normal" music analysis and interpretation, musical silence, like the picture frame, tends to erase itself. In their role as crucial structural determinants--a role which I hope has been successfully argued above--silences rarely figure into systematic accounts of the musical act, just as in the recollection of a novel, criticism usually does not go to spaces between lines, paragraphs, sections, and chapters. This remains the case, despite the fact that many twentieth-century works, such as those by Webern, Feldmann, Crumb, Paert, and others consist mainly of silences that are more salient than those in the various "works" of music mentioned above. Yet criticism and structural analysis usually focus on sounding musical events, leaving silence to be considered incidental, a mere accessory to the work proper. In (the) analysis (business), there is as much silence *about* the frames as well as *of* them. And when they are mentioned at all, as in Kant/Cone and Derrida, they receive much more attention than such a mere "accessory" or "hors d'oeuvre" would seem to require. There is a certain urgency, in these writers and in all aesthetics, to give us something with intrinsic content; in Romantic aesthetics, that something is the work itself, pure of essence, and uncontaminated by externals. Perhaps this urgency to peg the frame as accessory, unnecessary, adjunct, and so on comes from a presentiment that, instead of the work itself, the frame should be the proper focus of analysis and criticism. [4.2] After all, doesn't the frame fulfill all the requirements of Kantian/Conian beauty? For example, it is hard to imagine something more non-signifying, more meaningless than the silent frame. It is less meaningful, in the representational and propositional sense, than absolute music, which has proven itself quite susceptible to verbal description; it is much easier to coax a clear meaning from a piece of sound than from a piece of non-sound. Further, the frame is more a goal unto itself, a better example of Kantian "free beauty" than the work proper, which always needs an "internal environment," whether that represented world is real (as with the picture) or imagined (as with music). In music, as we have seen, that internal environment is a virtual world of another temporal quality--a world we could not access without the silence(s) of the frames. For a musical work to exist, the frame is necessary, perhaps more so than the "music itself," which always requires a frame to make itself understood as music. Unlike the work itself, the frame stands alone, inasmuch as it must be understood as adhering permanently neither to itself nor to the work it both serves and makes possible. [4.3] In conclusion, if all these things are true of the frame, then how might they bear pragmatically upon music analysis? In order to retain the fiction of the autonomous work of music, and all the sophisticated analytic machinery that has been manufactured to show just how "beautiful" that work is, must these functions of the frame --and not just that of silence--be ignored? It would seem impossible to formalize quantitatively the interactions of frame *and* work. Yet the development of qualitative categories, in a much more detailed manner than has been possible here, might provide or at least suggest new ways of listening. At minimum such a project should construct categories that account for the lack(s) within music that allow us to hear framing as both necessary and contingent at the same time. On the other hand, if all the above things are *not* true about the frame--if the frame somehow is *not* as "beautiful" as the music itself, in any of the ways outlined in the previous paragraph--then arguments of how the frame fails to attain "beauty" would interest me very much. +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ 2. Commentaries AUTHOR: Rothgeb, John TITLE: Re: Eytan Agmon on Functional Theory KEYWORDS: harmony, function, scale degree, Riemann, Schenker John Rothgeb Binghamton University Department of Music Binghamton, NY 13902-6000 rothgeb@bingsuns.cc.binghamton.edu ABSTRACT: A recent article by Eytan Agmon proposes a modified version of the theory of harmonic functions promulgated by Hugo Riemann. It is argued here that the proposed theory is superfluous unless the Schenkerian conception of scale degree is trivialized beyond recognition, and that (in any case) the reduction of seven independent scale degrees to only three categories cannot be reconciled with certain palpable musical effects. ACCOMPANYING FILES: mto.96.2.1.rothgeb1.gif mto.96.2.1.rothgeb2.gif mto.96.2.1.rothgeb2.mid mto.96.2.1.rothgeb3.gif mto.96.2.1.rothgeb4.gif mto.96.2.1.rothgeb4.mid mto.96.2.1.rothgeb5.gif mto.96.2.1.rothgeb5.mid mto.96.2.1.rothgeb6.gif mto.96.2.1.rothgeb6.mid [1] Eytan Agmon's recent article "Functional Harmony Revisited"(1) proposes a theory of functional meaning for harmonic degrees related to that of Hugo Riemann but differing from it by virtue of "greater theoretical rigor and the removal of arbitrary features" (211). As Agmon explains, "the hallmarks of functionalism are: (1) the characterization of individual chords as tonic (T), subdominant (S), or dominant (D) in function; and (2) the notion that the so-called primary triads, I, IV, and V somehow embody the essence of each of these functional categories." These are the characteristics of functionalism that Agmon wishes to preserve.(2) ******************************** 1.*Music Theory Spectrum* 17/2 (Fall, 1995), 196-214. 2.Among the features he is willing to abandon is Riemann's notion of *Scheinkonsonanz*, the idea that secondary triads are merely "apparent" consonances, each being accompanied always, if only tacitly, by an associated "characteristic dissonance." ******************************** [2] Agmon begins by situating functional theory in a larger intellectual context, presenting it as, in effect, a special case of what is known as *prototype theory*: "Indeed, one way of stating the core idea of the present article is: given a separation of chord progression from harmonic function, the notions *function *and *primary triad* are fully reducible to *category* and *prototype*, respectively" (199).(3) Note well what is stated here as a "given": harmonic function is conceived as entirely separable from chord progression. We shall return to this presupposition shortly. ******************************** 3.Later (202), by analogy, "functional strength" is said to reduce to "prototypicality." ******************************** [3] Agmon's theory is admirable in its simplicity. Its principal components are (1) a definition, based on note- content, of *degree of triadic similarity* for diatonic triads; (2) the specification of three "principles" that "uniquely select the triads I, IV, and V as prototypes of three harmonic categories. . ." (201); and (3) two additional "principles" that "determine the additional members of each category and their respective prototypicalities." Of the five "principles," two that select prototypes and one that selects additional members are described as "self-evident," a status that might be granted one of the other two as well--namely the principle that prototypes must not be maximally similar to each other.(4) The remaining principle, however--the *principle of symmetry*, which states that the graphic symmetry of Agmon's Fig. 2c, quoted here as example 1, "must not be violated"--is not self-evident, nor is its necessity established by Agmon on any persuasive independent basis. ******************************** 4.Agmon puts this too strongly in his statement that "prototypes must be maximally dissimilar to each other . . ." (201). I and IV, for example, are both prototypes, but their degree of similarity by his measure is "intermediate" rather than "minimal"; this must surely entail that their degree of dissimilarity is less than maximal. ******************************** [4] The diagram in example 1 shows the harmony of II as standing within the subdominant function, but also, just slightly, within the dominant. Agmon puts this into words at a later point in his essay with the following assertion: "although the function of II is primarily subdominant, a weak dominant function nevertheless exists" (206). Does this mean that II can be both subdominant and dominant at the same time? Apparently not: ". . .the dominant function of II, I believe, may be felt in certain contexts where II (or II^6^) is followed by I (or I^6^)." Thus the previously "given" separation of chord function from harmonic progression is, at least in this instance, retracted. As we shall see later, it must be retracted not in this one instance only, but, indeed, across the board. [5] Probably the central core of functional theory (the part that Agmon wishes to retain), unlike many of Riemann's ideas, was not merely a case of "theory for the sake of theory," but was rather a well-meaning attempt to respond to problems posed by a wide variety of perceptual phenomena. Let us examine one such phenomenon in detail. Consider the final cadence of Schumann's "Am Kamin" from *Kinderszenen*, shown in example 2. The three-note penultimate chord c - e - a contains the notes of a III in F major, but has the "aura" or in Agmon's term the "essence" of the dominant; this elusive "aura" is, I suspect, what is sought to be represented by the word "function" in functional theory, most of whose practitioners would here assign the symbol D for dominant. Henceforth in this review I shall (in most cases) enclose in quotation marks any Roman numeral that represents literal pitch content but not "aura," which latter entity will be designated by Roman numeral without quotation marks. Thus in Schumann's cadence, the "III" *means* V. [6] Why *does* this "III" *mean* V? At least two reasons can be adduced from the structure of Schumann's phrase, which is displayed in example 3. First, and probably most important, the treble voice negotiates a fifth-progression (a re-drawing, here in the coda, of the Urlinie descent). The last passing tone in that fifth, the g of the penultimate bar, moves to f at the end; the note a that intervenes, far from obliterating the g, takes on a subordinate role as a kind of embellishment or enhancement of the fundamental stepwise progression g - f. To be exact, it serves as what is variously termed an escape tone or an incomplete upper neighbor, but is perhaps still more precisely understood as an anticipation of the third of the coming tonic harmony. In any case, g implicitly but effectively remains present as the fifth of c. The third- space delineated by the succession a - f associates weakly with the preceding one from b-flat to g (see the brackets). [7] Secondly, an independent force is at work here, one that may as well be called harmonic syntax, or the syntax of scale-degree progression. The simplified harmonic basis of the passage is shown in example 4a. [8] We may perhaps agree with functional theory that "the so-called primary triads, I, IV, and V" are indeed primary in some meaningful sense. Example 4a is based on the succession of these primary harmonies prescribed by the most fundamental principle of their syntax: that of progression by fifth.(5) (Example 4b explains the origin of Schumann's II as the result of extending the bass of IV and letting the treble anticipate the fifth of the coming V.) The implication of the first falling fifth, f - b-flat, which could cast doubt on the identity of the tonic, is set right by the second one, c - f. Given the construction of the bass, people who hear musically will have a strong predilection to hear this final fifth as representing V - I even though its penultimate member does not bear the 5/3 sonority which alone would provide full congruence between scale-degree meaning and vertical chord. Add to this predilection the melodic factors described above and the penultimate chord c - e - a is heard as unmistakably expressing the "aura" of the dominant. *It is a harmonic realization of the dominant scale degree*. This means that the note a *in no sense functions as a harmonic root* here. The chord under discussion is *not* an inversion of an a- minor triad. Although it contains the notes of the triad of the mediant, if the Roman numeral as an analytic symbol is to reflect aural qualities of the music as heard by a perceptive listener rather than merely the appearance of the notation, the Roman numeral III cannot, without the accompanying "shudder-quotes" I have used here, accurately be applied to it. ******************************** 5.Schenker occasionally speaks evocatively of the "Quintengeist der Stufen." Agmon acknowledges "the privileged status of certain root relationships, most notably by descending fifth" (211). ******************************** [9] When I say that in this case "III" *means* V, the word *means* may be explicated as "constitutes, or is included within, a harmonic expression of." "III" may equally well *mean* I; "II" may *mean* IV; indeed, instances of "X" *meaning* Y are legion in the repertoire of tonal music, and virtually no a-priori limits can be set on the ranges of 'X' and 'Y'.(6) ******************************** 6.Certain limits would probably stand up under scrutiny. Although "II" can, under certain circumstances, be the sole constituent of an expression of IV, it is doubtful that "I" and V, for example, could be so related. ******************************** [10] This peculiarity of the relationship of momentary note- content to harmonic entities was grasped, to a large extent, by Heinrich Schenker as early as 1906: ". . . not every triad must be considered as a scale-step. . . ."(7) Schenker's subsequent work might be construed as a massive effort to explicate this perception, whose most concise and complete modern verbal formulation has been provided by Carl Schachter: "There is no such 'thing' as a I chord in C major, but only an idea that can find expression through the notes C, E, and G in any kind of simultaneous blending, through intervals created by two of these notes, through the note C alone, through such combinations as C - E-flat - G, C - E - G - A, and C - E - G - B-flat, through melodic lines of the most various shapes, through whole constellations of contrapuntal lines and chord successions controlled by the note C."(8) This improves on Schenker's clairvoyant but underexplicit 1906 formulation in its recognition that the relation between vertical note-combination and scale degree is even far less intimate than Schenker's early statement might suggest: altogether, it is not a note-combination but an "idea" (or "aura" or "essence") that is designated by the properly applied Roman numeral. ******************************** 7.Heinrich Schenker, *Harmony* (ed. O. Jonas, trans. E.M. Borghese; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954), 139. 8.Schachter, "Either/Or," in H. Siegel, ed, *Schenker Studies* (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 166. ******************************** [11] Unfortunately, however, this is not what Roman numeral and scale degree mean to Agmon. About Brahms's Intermezzo Op. 117, No. 2, he writes that ". . . in the consequent phrase, which begins in m. 9, the opening II^6^ chord concludes the dominant prolongation which begins in m. 6 . . ." (208). The chord referred to is the last chord of bar 9, and it does indeed occur within a prolongation of the dominant.(9) To call it II^6^ -- merely to use the Roman numeral in this way -- is to devalue a profoundly meaningful analytic symbol by turning it into a mere mechanical reduction of a trivial transliteration of note-content. Agmon, it is clear, speaks the language of the completely conventional harmony textbook. ******************************** 9.The identical 6/3 chord in the upbeat to bar 1 harmonizes a passing tone within a tonic prolongation. Agmon applies to it as well the functional symbol D--surely a gross overburdening with harmonic significance of one of the most elemental of contrapuntal phenomena: parallel motion in 6/3 chords. ******************************** [12] The theory of tonal music is thus effectively deprived of the scale degree in Schenker's visionary conception of it. Once the scale degree has been so devalued to identity with vertical note-content, as it invariably is in Agmon's article, the inevitable, and completely unacceptable, result is a theoretical void.(10) There is simply no longer any available theoretical correlate for certain palpable musical realities. ******************************** 10.Riemann, of course, had to be completely innocent of Schenker's breakthrough, and thus he cannot be accused of having trivialized an earlier important theoretical insight. Today matters are different, and it is discouraging that the best insights in our discipline remain incompletely understood. ******************************** [13] In certain contexts, function-theoretic analysis fills this void in a way that is perhaps not objectionable. Agmon's example 4a is given here as example 5. It is quoted by Agmon from Aldwell and Schachter's harmony textbook,(11) with only the replacement of the latter's (completely sufficient) "IV - I" by "S - T." In such a case, functional theory could be regarded as relatively benign. There would be no substantive objection to the replacement of the symbols; after all, "IV" and "subdominant" are interchangeable for almost all purposes. For its raison d'etre, however, functional theory would still be indebted only to the trivialization of scale degree and Roman numeral just described. ******************************** 11.Edward Aldwell and Carl Schachter, *Harmony and Voice Leading* (second edition, New York: 1989), 392. ******************************** [14] Functional theory goes much further, though, because it insists that (for example) II *always* represents one of the primary categories--usually S, less often D (see example 1). How plausible is this claim when it is applied to actual music--for example, to the opening bars of Haydn's piano sonata Hob. 52, Finale (see example 6)? The music of bar 1ff. composes out the tonic scale degree, the I. Beginning at the end of bar 8, the same diminution is applied to the second scale degree, the II. Clearly, Haydn has moved up a step. What is to be gained by insisting that the resulting F-minor area stands for anything but scale degree II--by claiming that it represents, for example, the subdominant? The justification for such a claim might argue from the fact that this harmony, like the subdominant so often, moves to V; if so, then all pretense of treating function apart from progression would have to be renounced.(12) In some cases--chiefly when 2^ appears in an inner voice, which is hardly the case here--it might be said that II "sounds" (somewhat) like IV (at least to most undergraduage students); this by no means justifies depriving II of its independent place as a harmony in the key. ******************************** 12.For all that the similar behavior of II and IV is conventional wisdom, analytic theory and analytic insight in fact gain nothing by its affirmation, which is merely a compromise convenient for certain pedagogical purposes. ******************************** [15] Worse still, to assert that this II "is" a version of the subdominant would lead to certain bizarre results. It would mean, for example, that the relation between the root of the F-minor harmony in bar 9ff. of example 6 and the root of the initial tonic is primarily to be understood as a fifth rather than a second; and moreover, that the harmonic progression in bars 16-17 is by second rather than by fifth. This is where functional theory ceases to be benign and becomes pernicious. [16] Thus "II" *need not* represent IV. It *may* do so, of course, as has long been understood. In case it does, the explanation is to be sought in domains other than harmonic theory. A careful consideration of such a "II" *in its context* will show that its constituent scale degree 2^ has a linear mission (e.g. as a passing or neighboring note).(13) Such a mission excludes any interpretation of 2^ as a harmonic root, and thus excludes an interpretation of such a "II" as II.(14) ******************************** 13.Here I draw attention particularly to Agmon's statement, quoted earlier, that ". . .the dominant function of II. . . may be felt in *certain contexts*. . ." (emphasis added). It is not only "II", however, but *every* chord whose meaning is ascertainable *only* with reference to all features of its context. 14.It does not, however, exclude the possibilty that IV may appear to "turn into" II in the course of prolongation. Such a reinterpretation exploits the equivocality of the 6/3 chord, in which the 6 may in principle represent either a linear element or the root of an inverted chord. When such a 6 is so reinterpreted as a root, it may be reincarnated as the bass of a 5/3. See Schenker, *Free Composition* (trans. E. Oster; New York: Longman, 1979), p. 90, "Addition of a Root." Much complexity is added to this topic (a full treatment of which exceeds the scope of this review) by the relation between structural levels: a note that arises in the background by a linear process may become a "root" in the foreground. This is fully analogous to the notion of "key areas" as foreground "illusions." ******************************** [17] Agmon had no choice, therefore, but to retract (in at least one instance) his postulate that "harmonic function" can be treated apart from "chord progression." He represents the case in which he does retract it as special, but in fact the circumstances that lead him to take "chord progression" into consideration there are completely general and equally present everywhere in music. And it is not merely "chord progression" but voice leading, meter and rhythm, motif, and in brief all aspects of what Schenker called *Auskomponierung* that must be considered in assessing the function--harmonic and otherwise--of chordal entities as they occur in music. Functional theory remains a superfluous appendage so long as we do not discard what has been learned about music thus far. +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ 3. Reviews AUTHOR: Lochhead, Judy TITLE: Review of *Embodied Voices: Representing female vocality in western culture* edited by Leslie C. Dunn and Nancy A. Jones (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). Series: New perspectives in music history and criticism, General Editors: Jeffrey Kallberg and Anthony Newcomb. KEYWORDS: Female vocality, embodiment, performance, poststructuralist theory Judy Lochhead Department of Music SUNY at Stony Brook Stony Brook, New York 11794-5475 JLOCHHEAD@CCMAIL.SUNYSB.EDU ABSTRACT: Review of *Embodied Voices: Representing female vocality in western culture* edited by Leslie C. Dunn and Nancy A. Jones. The review discusses the concept of embodiment that underlies the fourteen essays by various authors in this collection and briefly summarizes two of the essays to show how the concept is variously manifested. The review concludes by suggesting why the concept of embodiment is useful to scholars of music. [1] *Embodied Voices: Representing female vocality in western culture* is a collection of fourteen essays by authors from various humanistic disciplines. Of the fourteen, two are by authors listed as teaching in music departments; the remaining authors are professionally engaged as scholars of English and French literature, comparative studies, and cinema. The essays address 1) vocal music--especially music sung by women--as it is depicted in literature and film, 2) the representation of female voice in filmic conventions, 3) the role of women as singers in various musical traditions, and 4) attitudes toward the female voice revealed by electronic reproduction. The conceptual category underlying the essays is "embodiment." [2] In their introduction, the two editors, Leslie C. Dunn and Nancy A. Jones, define the philosophical context in which the concept of embodiment comes into play. They invoke the theories of French poststructuralists such as Julia Kristeva, Michel Poizat, and Roland Barthes (1) which maintain that the meaning of a vocal utterance--spoken or sung--is constituted not simply by its semantic content but also by its sonorous content. Drawing on Barthes's notion of "the grain of the voice" in particular, Dunn and Jones focus attention on the essential role played by the "purely sonorous" features of the "audible female voice" in "the construction of its non-verbal meanings" (p. 2). We may note here that these purely sonorous features are those often identified as "musical"--register, sound quality, dynamics, accent, rhythm, and tempo. ============================ 1. See Julia Kristeva, *Revolution in Poetic Language*, trans. Margaret Waller (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984); Michel Poizat, *The Angel's Cry: Beyond the Pleasure Principle in Opera*, trans. Arthur Denner (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992); and Roland Barthes, "The Grain of the Voice," *Image, Music, Text*, trans. Stephen Heath (New York: Noonday Press, 1977), pp. 181-83. =========================== [3] The concept of "embodiment" comes into play through the editors' explicit acknowledgement that sonorous features must be conceptually linked to the production of vocal sound through a person's body. The collection focuses specifically on the production of sound by female bodies or by a male body meant to project in some sense a female voice. Their insistence on the linking of vocal sound to its human producer draws attention to the idea of sound as "performed." But the concept of embodiment goes beyond a simple notion of performance as a "putting out" of sound. It recognizes not only the source of vocal production but also the various factors of acculturation that affect the reception of vocal sound--of "feminine" vocal production in this instance. The editors assert that vocal meaning--be it musical or spoken--derives from "an intersubjective acoustic space" and that any attempt to articulate that meaning must necessarily "reconstruct . . . the contexts of . . . hearing" (p. 2). [4] In asserting that performative aspects of sound contribute to vocal meaning, Dunn and Jones recognize the roles played by 1) the person or people producing the sound, 2) the person or people hearing the produced sound and 3) the acoustical and social contexts in which production and hearing occur. The "meaning" of any vocal sound, then, must be understood as co-constituted by performative as well as semantic/structural features. This is the underlying concept that makes the collection of importance to scholars of music. I'll return to this point shortly. [5] The interest in embodied knowledge has been reflected in a wide variety of humanistic and scientific fields in the last twenty years. Studies focusing on how the human body figures in the ways we know our world range across several disciplines: *The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience*, by Varela, Thompson, and Rosch; *Throwing Like a Girl and Other Essays in Feminist Philosophy and Social Theory*, by Young; *Body/Politics: Women and the Discourses of Science*, edited by Jacobus, Fox Keller, and Shuttleworth; and *The Address of the Eye: A Phenomenology of Film Experience*, by Sobchack.(2) These texts are indebted implicitly or explicitly to the phenomenological philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, whose various writings articulate a theory of cognition which recognizes the intersubjective and bodily basis of all human knowledge.(3) ================================= 2. Francisco J. Varela, Evan Thompson, and Eleanor Rosch, *The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience* (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1993); Iris Marion Young, *Throwing Like a Girl and Other Essays in Feminist Philosophy and Social Theory* (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990); Mary Jacobus, Evelyn Fox Keller, and Sally Shuttleworth, eds., *Body/Politics: Women and the Discourses of Science* (New York: Routledge Chapman and Hall, 1989); Vivian Sobchack, *The Address of the Eye: A Phenomenology of Film Experience* (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992). 3. See in particular these writings by Merleau-Ponty: *Phenomenology of Perception*, trans. Colin Smith (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1962); *The Primacy of Perception and Other Essays*, ed. James M. Edie (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1964); and *The Visible and the Invisible*, ed. Claude Lefort, trans. Alphonso Lingis (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1968). ================================ [6] The various authors of *Embodied Voices* tap into the philosophical tradition of embodiment by showing how the culturally gendered bodies both of vocal performers and of hearers are reflected in the meanings of those vocal sounds. Some examples should help to clarify these issues. [7] Two essays demonstrate some aspects of the concept of embodiment in vocal performance: "The voice of lament: female vocality and performative efficacy in the Finnish-Karelian *itkuvirsi*" by Elizabeth Tolbert (pp. 179-196) and "Red hot mamas: Bessie Smith, Sophie Tucker, and the ethnic maternal voice in American popular song" by Peter Antelyes (pp. 212-229). Tolbert demonstrates that women from Karelia (who are refugees living now in Finland) sing laments (*itkuvirsi*) that are characterized as feminine through a variety of "*texted* and *melodic*" figures. These figures constitute "icons of crying" that intersubjectively signal the emotions necessary for the lament. Tolbert writes: The lamenter projects the experience of grief through her individual voice as a means to orchestrate the collective experience of sorrow. It is the very quality of the female crying voice, a voice that 'cries with words,' that is elaborated in performance to symbolize affect and to set this genre apart from others to accomplish cultural work grounded in the experience of grief (p. 180). Note how Tolbert links the expressive efficacy of the Karelian lament--its intersubjective meaning--directly to the vocal quality of the female voice. Later she also links the sound of the female voice to the sound of the text and to certain improvised melodic features of the lamenting. Through this linking Tolbert demonstrates that the Karelian lament embodies grief through the sound of the female voice and through its texted and musical features that act as "icons of crying." In other words, the meaning of the lament can not be conceptually separated from the female body that produces it. [8] In his essay, Peter Antelyes demonstrates how the "red hot mama" developed as a vocal type through such singers as Bessie Smith and Sophie Tucker and how the musical features of this vocal type are linked to the female body and to the specifically female features epitomized by performers like Smith and Tucker (e.g., the "hour-glass" figure). Antelyes demonstrates how Smith and Tucker were both characterized by the largeness of their physical bodies and of their voices. As Antelyes points out, the bodily presence afforded by both aspects of the red hot mama's size allowed her "to escape reduction to, and containment within, her body" (p. 217). Further, the lyrics of her songs in conjunction with her sizeable vocal presence, allowed the red hot mama to "reclaim . . . the female body from the patriarchal reductionism that objectified women as bodies alone" (p. 217).(4) For Antelyes, the meaning of the red hot mamas's songs derived from her large physical and vocal presence and from the way the lyrics play off of patriarchal expectations of the female body. ================================== 4. Antelyes provides further nuance to his account of the affective meaning of the red hot mama's songs by demonstrating the oedipal features of sound and lyrics that figure in the songs' performative aspects. In the context of this review I can only refer the reader to this aspect of Antelyes's argument. ================================== [9] While the essays as a group express no single manifestation of the concept of embodiment, each maintains the underlying concern with the performative aspects of sounding meaning. Indeed, the wide variety of approaches to the voice and to vocality allows readers to explore the depth of nuance that the concept of embodiment entails. The editors have organized this wide variety of approaches in two ways. First, there is a mostly chronological ordering of the topics: the first essay addresses the "Gorgon and the nightingale" in Pindar's Twelfth *Pythian Ode* while the last deals with Madonna's song "Like a Prayer" and her "Make a Wish" commercial. The second ordering, the one reflected in the book's larger sections, reflects four large topics: Part I--"myths and fantasies of the female voice" (p. 7); Part II--"listeners' responses to female vocality" (p. 8); Part III--the "cultural authority and creative force" of 'feminine vocality'" (p. 10); and Part IV--"the potent dream of maternal presence" through female vocality. [10] The essays of Part I address female vocality in literature by Pindar, Dante, Shakespeare, and Wordsworth. In Part II, they focus on performance traditions in late-sixteenth and early- seventeenth-century English theater; mid-twentieth-century attitudes toward the trained female voice in the American film musical; and perceptual reactions to the disembodiment of the female voice through electronic reproduction. The essays of Part III address George Eliot's *Armgart*, which meditates on the authority displayed by the opera diva in her vocal performances; the resituating of a female voice in Louise Colet's "protofeminist text" *La Servante* (p. 11); the vocal implications of the cinematic technique of direct address in films by Francois Truffaut and Trinh Minh Ha; and the cultural power of the female voice in ritual lament. Finally, the essays of Part IV address the role of mothers's songs in novels of Toni Morrison; the expressive power of the red hot mamas in the early- twentieth-century blues tradition; and Madonna's role in the tradition of women's creativity in the twentieth century. [11] I conclude by adopting a more evaluative stance toward the collection, returning finally to the concept of performative embodiment which makes these essays significant for music scholars. In their introduction, Dunn and Jones state that "voices inhabit an intersubjective acoustic space" and that to understand the meaning of vocally-produced sound, the "contexts of hearing"--the intersubjective acoustic space--must be recovered. All of the essays succeed in their attempts to recover--or better to dis-cover--the layers of acculturation that play a role in "hearing" but few make any attempt to dis-cover the qualitative features of vocal sound that are performed or received in that context. There is little discussion of vocal or musical sound as such and what does occur is spare and merely suggestive.(5) ================================ 5. The article by Peter Antelyes on "Red hot mamas" was particularly frustrating from a musical point of view since he discusses actual performances of songs without citing their discographic information. At the beginning of the article he thanks David Goldenberg for "supplying him with many currently unavailable Sophie Tucker recordings" (p. 212). While one may admire Antelyes's access to such recordings, their commercial unavailability prevents other critical or analytical accounts of Tucker's vocal performances. ================================ [12] In all fairness I should point out that many of the essays are about sounds that have never "actually" occurred, as in the fictional accounts of Sirens and opera divas, but this focus affirms the literary interests of the authors--interests that may not automatically transfer to the interests of musical scholars. One essay, that by Elizabeth Tolbert on Karelian laments, stands apart from the others in its theorizing of the relation between sounding features and meaning in music. Tolbert's essay alone makes claims about how specific sounds project specific meanings; and while not answering all questions arising from such endeavors, it provides a strong example. [13] But it is not simply on the basis of Tolbert's article that I recommend this book for scholars of music. The essays of *Embodied Voices* include little discussion of music as a sounding phenomenon, but they do suggest ways in which we may profitably theorize about musical sound. Dunn and Jones's insistence on the embodied, on the performative aspects of vocal sound provides a good model for a similar approach to musical sound--an approach that recognizes sound as produced by someone, as heard by someone, and as a product of a social and acoustical context. An approach to musical analysis that takes account of production, reception and context can be figured in diverse ways. We can no longer reject the performative aspects of sound because of their changeability, because of their contingency on time, person, and place. Quite the contrary, it is precisely because of the changeable features of performance that music wields its immense expressive power. The essays of *Embodied Voices" are important because they teach us--*us* as music theorists--about the varieties of performative embodiment that are correlated with music's expressive powers. ============================= AUTHOR: McCreless, Patrick TITLE: Review of Jean-Jacques Nattiez, *Wagner Androgyne: A Study in Interpretation* (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993). KEYWORDS: Nattiez, Wagner, androgyny Patrick McCreless School of Music University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX 78712-1208 pmcc@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu [1] Near the beginning of the tenth chapter of *Wagner Androgyne* Jean-Jacques Nattiez introduces a quotation that he identifies as coming from an obscure, unpublished lecture of Claude Levi-Strauss--a lecture given in Brazil, and made available to Nattiez by a Brazilian friend. The passage is vintage Levi-Strauss: structuralist to a fault, and using the paradigmatic method to identify an underlying similarity of structure in two myths that seem, on the surface anyway, to have nothing to do with one another. What attracts Nattiez is that the myths addressed by Levi-Strauss are in fact Wagnerian myths--those of Siegfried and Tristan: My studies revealed the extensive connections between all genuine myths and opened my eyes to the marvelous variations that can be found within this rediscovered corpus. It was with a delightful sense of unmistakability that I encountered one such variant in the relationship between Tristan and Isolde as compared with that of Siegfried and Brunnhilde. Just as in languages, a sound shift often produces two apparently different words from one and the same original, so two apparently differing relationships had evolved from this single mythic relationship as a result of a similar shift or transmutation (p. 237). The paragraph proceeds to detail the deep structural parallels between the two myths, and Nattiez picks up the thread to adduce two comparable cases: one that Levi-Strauss posits between *Die Meistersinger* and *Parsifal* ("In both cases an elderly and experienced man . . . retires in favor of another, younger man, who is exceptionally gifted and whom he enthrones. . . . "), and Nattiez's own cherished parallel between the "androgyny" in Wagner's theoretical writings and that in his operas--the topic of the book. These seductive structural parallels serve to launch the main body of the chapter, in which Nattiez 1) reviews the topic of androgyny in Levi-Strauss's work, focusing especially on his provocative theory that, since the late sixteenth century, music replaces myth in Western culture, and that it functions on a sexual principle whereby [male] music fills up the internal spaces of the [female] listener; 2) critiques Levi- Strauss's structural analysis, in *The Naked Man,* of the *Ring*; and 3) allies Levi-Strauss with Freud as twentieth- century theorists who purvey a structuralist, totalizing hermeneutics. Such a hermeneutics, according to Nattiez, "reduce[s] the world's diversity to an endless series of binary opposites," in the process obliterating the human subject, denying time and historical process, and--most perniciously of all--"bolster[ing] up the liberty and laxity of interpretation" (p. 253), such that the binary opposites are reversed, male becomes female, night becomes day, and (a leitmotif heard continually in the long third part of the book) all meaning is lost in a "total freedom of interpretation" (p. 263). [2] Chapter Ten encapsulates in a nutshell the strengths and weaknesses of Nattiez's book. Nattiez's intellectual roots, of course, are in French structuralism, and he shares with the best of his models--of whom Levi-Strauss is certainly one--an imaginative and wide-ranging mind, a polymathic command of sources in a dizzying spectrum of disciplines, a penchant for close reading of texts, and a flair for the "paradigmatic method" of discovering deep parallels that are hidden beneath textual surfaces. So it comes as no surprise that in this chapter Nattiez navigates his way breezily among many of Levi-Strauss's works, Wagner's writings, Wagner's operas, Ravel's *Bolero* (as analyzed by Levi-Strauss), Freud and Jung, with passing references to Paul Ricoeur, Roman Jakobson, Umberto Eco, a few contemporaries of Freud, and a number of French critics thrown in for good measure. Nor does it come as a surprise that Nattiez has discovered a structural parallel that really is worth knowing and thinking about: that just as Wagner invented a powerful sexual metaphor for the relation of text and music in opera (the text as male, fertilizing with content and meaning the womb of music, which is female), so did Levi-Strauss create a striking metaphor for the communication of musical meaning, which resembles Wagner's in intriguing ways. But in the same way that structuralists (as pointed out by Nattiez himself in this very chapter) often succumbed to the temptation of collapsing the wildest differences into the flatness of simple binary oppositions, which amass their great power in part because they are sometimes defined so broadly as to be able to swallow up everything in their path, so does Nattiez succeed in his task of discovering "androgyny" to underlie both Wagner's prose writings and his operas in part because he subsumes so much under the term that it becomes virtually meaningless. And Nattiez's attack on structuralist interpretation, while perhaps justifiable in its own right, is just one part of a gratuitous and curious polemic that weighs down the entire last part of the book. [3] Previous reviewers of Nattiez's study (1) have taken him to task on his use of the concept "androgyny," and they are right: it is incumbent upon the author of a book entitled *Wagner Androgyne* to let us know concisely what androgyny means. Nattiez does not. We can read along happily for pages, thinking that we know, only to be jolted out of our complacency by a new and unexplained usage just when we have begun to congratulate ourselves on having finally figured it out. Sadly, neither conventional usage nor logic is a major player in Nattiez's formulation of the idea of androgyny. Most of us probably go into reading the book with the concept that androgyny involves something that simultaneously bears characteristics of both sexes. This intuition seems to be confirmed when Nattiez provides (in a footnote of Chapter Five, however, not in the actual text) the crucial distinction that he has "reserved the term *androgyny* for the *symbolic* representation of the union of the two sexes," while "the term *hermaphrodite* is used to describe a real *biological* being with attributes of both sexes" (footnote 13 on p. 328). Fine: androgyny is symbolic, but hermaphrodites are real. But then, even if we accept that the term refers to the world of symbol, not the real one, Nattiez engenders utter confusion by employing *androgyny,* contrary to conventional usage, to refer not only to the notion of a single being that combines attributes of both sexes (like a hermaphrodite, or like the Wagnerian or Jungian individual who incorporates psychic aspects of both sexes), but to that of the union of *two* separate and sexually differentiated individuals (like Adam and Eve). Thus, the sexual unions of Siegmund and Sieglinde, Siegfried and Brunnhilde, and Tristan and Isolde all represent instances of "androgyny." But if that's androgyny, one may well ask what symbolic relation or union of the two sexes is *not* androgyny, and to that question I was unable to find a convincing answer in Nattiez's book. ============================================================= 1. See especially the reviews by Brian Hyer in the *Journal of the American Musicological Society* 47 (1994): 531-40; and Paul Robinson in the *Cambridge Opera Review* 7 (1995): 81- 85. ============================================================= [4] Compounding the confusion is a serious logical problem. In the light of the above description of androgyny as the "symbolic representation of the union of the two sexes," what do we do with a statement that appears elsewhere in the book, to the effect that the "metaphor of androgyny" "seems to be based on a simple, universal formula: X is to Y as man is to woman" (p. 288)? This formulation is not about the union of characteristics into a single entity at all, but about a relationship of characteristics themselves. Neither in the symbolic world nor the real one should we have to deal with a word that means *both* the combination of two contrasting terms into one, *and* the relationship of the two terms to each other. (If x/y = x + y, the only solutions are everything and nothing.) [5] Central though this terminological morass is to the book and its argument, and irritating though it be, it is not fatal. My advice to the reader: go with whatever definition of "androgyny" seems to work at the time, and don't worry about it. Once one grants wide berth to androgyny, and in fact begins to realize that the real point is that sexual metaphors dominate Wagner's stage and prose works, and that there are powerful and intriguing connections between the two, one finds much of worth to ponder. To be sure, there are frustrations: Nattiez often ranges far from the topic at hand, he obscures his argument with unnecessary detail, and in the third and final part of the book he appropriates his notion of Wagnerian androgyny in the service of a political polemic that in my view detracts from rather than contributes to the effectiveness of his study. But he does provide a detailed and well-researched overview of Wagner's changing use of sexualized metaphors in his conceptualization of his own art and that of his predecessors, and his linking of these metaphors in the prose works to the stage works does offer a new and valuable critical perspective. [6] The question that motivates the book is, "What is the significance of androgyny in Wagner's works and theoretical writings when seen in the context of the texts, the composer's life, and the age in which he lived?" (Preface, xiv-xv).(2) This question leads to two theses, which it is the task of the book to prove. The first is "that the myth around which the *Ring* revolves may be read as a metaphorical reenactment of Wagner's conception of the history of music" (Preface, xv)--a history in which the sexualized metaphor of male text and female music plays a central role. The second is "that throughout his life, Wagner's theory of the relationship between poetry and music is reflected, in his music dramas, in the relations between man and woman" (Preface, xv). It is these two theses that generate the first two parts of the book: "Androgyny and the *Ring*: From Theory to Practice," and "Music and Poetry: The Metamorphoses of Wagnerian Androgyny." ============================================================= 2. I will continue to use the word "androgyny" in direct quotations and in situations where Nattiez himself would use it, despite the reservations noted above. If both here and in the book one substitutes "the symbolic relationship of, and/or union of the sexes" for "androgyny," one will come close to his meaning. ============================================================= [7] Part One (Chapters 1-5) posits androgyny as a theme that links Wagner's writings from 1848 to 1851--that is, those from around the time of the early gestation of the text of *Ring*--to the *Ring* itself. Nattiez's argument here, in brief, is as follows. For the Wagner of *Opera and Drama,* the history of musical drama, from the time of the ancient Greeks to his own time, proceeds from 1) an original (androgynous) unity of poetry and music, to 2) a division of the two, either into spoken drama and absolute music, or-- what is worse--a mismatch of drama and music in Italian opera and the detestable "modern opera" of Meyerbeer, and 3) a yet- to-be-realized creative union, in the perfect musico-dramatic work of the future, of (male) poetry and (female) music, with the poetic or dramatic element dominating the musical one. Similarly, in the *Ring* there is a progression from 1) an original (androgynous) state of nature--represented by the three Rheindaughters, who, though all female, embody the unity of the sister arts of music, poetry, and dance (a natural state of affairs that, according to Wagner, prevailed in Greek tragedy; to 2) a period of rupture ("unity" is destroyed by Alberich's theft of the gold, and later Siegfried must forge the shards of the sword together), in which Nattiez is quick to find parallels between the mythic Alberich and Mime, on the one hand, and the historical Meyerbeer, on the other; to 3) the triumphant union of Siegfried and Brunnhilde at the end of Act III of *Siegfried*. Since, in the final scene of that act, Siegfried and Brunnhilde merge into one, each taking on characteristics of the opposite sex ("the true human being is both male and female," Wagner wrote to August Rockel in 1852), Nattiez interprets their union as embodying symbolically the bringing together the male poet and the female musician--but with the poet, or Siegfried with his sword, dominant--into an artistic whole that transcends "modern opera" and that restores the androgynous unity of the beginning of the cycle--and, one presumes, of the beginning of history as well.(3) The tragic *Gotterdammerung* then demonstrates the inherent instability of such an androgynous union. Siegfried is seduced by Gutrune, who in his view represents the corrupt modern French comic opera; he betrays Brunnhilde and thus the unity of music and poetry achieved at the end of *Siegfried,* and the cycle ends in catastrophe. ============================================================= 3. Paul Robinson rightly questions whether such a state of affairs in any sense represents androgyny and the transcendence of sexual difference, or whether it in fact perpetuates male domination in its most virulent form. See his review, pp. 81-82. ============================================================= [8] Part Two (Chapters 6-7) of the book turns on the same imagery, but carries the story to the end of Wagner's life by drawing similar parallels between the composer's writings between 1851 and 1873 (especially "Zukunftsmusik" of 1860, and "Beethoven" of 1870) and *Tristan,* and between his latest essays (between 1878 and 1883) and *Parsifal.* In his discussion of the middle period (Chapter 6, 1851-1873), Nattiez admits that the sexual imagery of *Opera and Drama* disappears. Yet the power relations inscribed in the earlier works remain, although they are now inverted so that it is the musician, not the poet, who calls the shots--perhaps, according to Nattiez, because Wagner's experience in composing the music of the *Ring* (through Act II of *Siegfried*) in the 1850's might have taught him how much his text was conditioned by music from the start, regardless of what he had claimed in theory. In *Tristan* this shift is incarnated not only in the way the music dominates the text, but also in the fact that it is Isolde, representing music, who takes the lead in the drama: it is she who insists on meeting with Tristan, who invites him to her quarters, who orders the potion to be prepared, who arranges the tryst in Act II, and so forth. Finally, in the essays written in the years of working on *Parsifal* (discussed in Nattiez's Chapter 7), Wagner returns to his earlier sexual metaphor: ". . . as I have explained in figurative terms elsewhere, the poet's task can be described as the male principle, while the music, by contrast, is the female principle in a union that aims to create the greatest synthesis of the arts. . . ."(4) Yet, as in the *Tristan* period, it is the musician who is in charge: "It was no longer the poet who was left to structure the tragedy but the lyric musician."(5) But here Nattiez seems to be at a loss as to how to explain this turn in the theoretical writings to the opera *Parsifal.* The sexual metaphor is only weakly present in the late essays. Furthermore, there is no question of a one-to-one mapping of Wagner's history of music and the events of the drama, as there was in the *Ring*; nor is there an obvious dramatic parallel between the relation of drama and music and the relation of male and female characters, as there was in *Tristan*--Kundry is hardly the dominant figure in the opera in comparison to Parsifal. So Nattiez ends up abandoning the analogy (between Wagner's theories and his works) that has guided the book thus far (though he does not explicitly say that he is doing so), and sees in *Parsifal* what amounts to an *Aufhebung* of androgyny to the level of culture itself. For what Nattiez sees in *Parsifal* is a Wagnerian androgyny that leaves poetry and music behind, and instead implants itself in the content of the opera: an androgyny that does not represent a union of the two sexes, as in the *Ring* and *Tristan,* but, in the spirit of Wagner's late misogynist and racist writings, "proclaims the advent of a raceless, sexless society" (p. 172), in which racial and sexual differences are transcended, once and for all. ============================================================= 4. Quoted by Nattiez (p. 164) from Wagner's 1879 essay, "On Opera Poetry and Composition in Particular." 5. Quoted by Nattiez (p. 164) from Wagner's 1879 essay, "On Poetry and Composition." ============================================================= [9] Nattiez deserves high praise for his careful reading of Wagner's writings, especially those of the 1848-51 period, and for his imaginative reading of the *Ring* in the light of both the sexualized metaphors of the theoretical works and of Wagner's own life experience. To cite a single example: Nattiez devotes a short chapter to the 1850 scenario, *Wieland der Schmied,* briefly intended for the Paris Opera, but never set to music. He draws convincing parallels, on the one hand, between the dramatic situation in *Wieland* and Wagner and his writings, and on the other, between *Wieland* and *Siegfried*. The male artisan-poet (Wieland), crippled and tormented by a greedy oppressor (Neiding), but driven on by his Need (Noth) and inspired by the swan-maiden who is to be his wife, invents something utterly new (wings) and thus flies aloft to be with his bride, after which he exacts deadly vengeance on Neiding and his court. As Nattiez suggests, it is difficult not to see here a confluence of the real Wagner, oppressed in Paris (in his own view) by Meyerbeer, and his theoretical musings about the male poet and the female musician, all wrapped into a single (and, it must be admitted, crudely autobiographical) dramatic scenario. The same formula is imported into *Siegfried,* where Siegfried, Mime, Brunnhilde, "Noth," and the sword play the same roles as Wieland, Neiding, Schwanhilde, "Noth," and the wings. Nattiez's thesis that the *Ring* is a metaphorical reenactment of the history of music (a la Wagner) thus makes certain aspects of *Siegfried* begin to make more sense, although their autobiographical resonance now makes them seem--to me, at least--even more odious than before: the thinly veiled anti-Semitic caricature of Mime, the violence of Siegfried's forging of the sword, and his murder of Mime (6). ============================================================= 6. Nattiez's book can be read profitably in conjunction with Marc A. Weiner's *Richard Wagner and the Anti-Semitic Imagination* (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1995). Both books tie Wagner's writings (letters as well as theoretical essays) convincingly to his dramatic works, and both make much of the anti-Semitic caricatures of Alberich and Mime (though Weiner does so in far greater detail). But whereas Nattiez shies away from the ethical implications of such connections, Weiner foregrounds them. ============================================================= [10] At the same time, there are aspects of Nattiez's interpretation of the *Ring* that simply do not compute. To understand the Rhinedaughters as metaphorical depictions of poetry, music, and dance; the original state of the world as involving the unity of these three arts; Alberich, Mime and Hagen as embodiments of all that was to Wagner reprehensible in 1830's and 1840's opera; Siegfried's forging of the sword as a triumphant act of creativity; his vanquishing of Mime as the victory of his brand of opera over that of Meyerbeer; and his union with Brunnhilde as the establishment of the new artistic order--all this is plausible, and deftly argued. But such an interpretation leaves out enormous chunks of the *Ring,* and leaves us with many nagging questions. What do we do with Wotan, who is hardly even mentioned, or with Siegmund and Sieglinde? What do we do with the central dramatic motif of Wotan's renunciation of power? If Siegfried represents poetry and Brunnhilde music, why is Siegfried so stupid and inarticulate, and why does Brunnhilde have to take years to teach him her runic wisdom (which, one presumes, is in "male" spoken language, not the "female" language of "pure feeling," or music)? And does it make sense to turn Gutrune, who supposedly seduces Siegfried with the wiles of vapid French comic opera, into perhaps the central character of Gotterdammerung, rather than seeing her as a pathetic dupe whose worst sin is merely passive collusion in an evil plot? These are serious questions that I have as yet been unable to answer to my own satisfaction. At the same time, much of Nattiez's virtuosic tying together of Wagner's theories and the drama seems intuitively right. His interpretation is already deeply embedded in my own reception history of the *Ring,* and it has woven a rich new strand into my experience of the cycle. [11] Nattiez is unable to bring together theory and drama quite so closely in Part Two of the book, simply because Wagner retreated from his sexualized metaphor after the writings of the early 1850's. But there is nevertheless much of value here. Chapter Five, "Wagnerian Androgyny and Its Romantic Counterpart," is one of the strongest chapters in the book. Always the scholar, Nattiez reconstructs a whole literature on androgyny from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, from works on art history, medicine, philosophy and theology, as well as fiction and poetry. Much of this literature envisions a new social order based on either the equality of the sexes or the transcendence of sexual difference: for example, Schlegel's comment in the essay "Uber die diotima" of 1795 that "The goal to which the human race should aspire is the progressive reintegration of the sexes" (quoted on p. 114), or the well-known love-and- death imagery of Novalis (p. 116). A sampling of such writing places Wagner's sexualized language in a broader cultural context, and it strengthens Nattiez's argument that the notion of overcoming sexual difference, if not actual androgyny, is central to the *Ring,* *Tristan,* and *Parsifal*. And if his readings of *Tristan* and *Parsifal* seem somewhat contrived, since their relation to theory is murkier, they nevertheless round out his narrative of the relation of Wagner's theory and art by offering many new insights. [12] By the end of Part Two, Nattiez has pursued the theme of "androgyny" in Wagner's writings and operas from 1848 to his death, and he has argued his two principal theses in detail. So the book should be over, should it not? Yet such is hardly the case: its longest and most substantial part-- fully 40 percent of the total length--still remains. Why? The purpose of this extended Part Three, "Wagner and Androgynous Hermeneutics," which includes five chapters and an Epilogue, is not clear in the Preface, and it only gradually makes itself apparent as one reads it. At first it seems as though the final, longish section is borne of a certain defensiveness on Nattiez's part that his "historico- genetic approach" in Parts I and II might be deemed insufficient; indeed, he indicates as much at the end of Part II (p. 178): suppose that "factual evidence and explicit statements" are not enough? Suppose that, dealing as he does with androgyny and myth, someone demands that he take into account the workings of the unconscious? [13] Ostensibly to head off such criticism, he launches into a full-blown Freudian analysis of Wagner and his family--an analysis that, it must be admitted, creates a yawning chasm between Parts Two and Three, and leaves the reader to his or her own devices as to figuring out how this discussion and the chapters that follow will relate to what has been said so far. But what gradually emerges in these chapters is not merely a methodological defensiveness. It is in fact a full- fledged claim on the part of Nattiez of an objective validity, and demonstrable truth value for his "philological, historico-genetic method" of interpretation. Against the factual security of his own method he sees the interpretive systems that he examines in successive chapters of Part Three--Freudian psychology in Chapter Eight, Jungian psychology in Chapter Nine, Levi-Straussian structuralism in Chapter Ten, Marxist theory in Chapter Eleven, and post- structuralism and deconstruction in Chapter Twelve--as denying the possibility of such objective validity. The baleful refrain that underlies all these chapters is--and here I cite Nattiez's condemnation of Roland Barthes, although he says essentially the same thing about most of the writers that he evaluates: "there is no longer a hierarchy of value or validity between the commentaries on a text: *one can say whatever one wants*" (p. 264; emphasis mine). Or compare his dismissal of Freud: "Freudian exegesis provided the paradigm for later hermeneutics, all of which maintains that they can 'establish' that what is said is what is not said, and that I say the opposite of what I say. When I love my mother, I hate my father, but at the same time as hating him, I love him because, being a man, I am also a woman" (pp. 217-18). [14] And what is the ultimate foundation of all this "freedom of interpretation"? Who would have guessed? It is nothing other than *androgyny* itself. It is "sexual ambivalence": "There is femininity in masculinity, and masculinity in femininity. When I say 'white, I mean 'black'" (p. 217). It is an "ideological grounding in androgyny" (p. 217) that leads Nattiez to consign not only Freud, but also Jung, Levi- Strauss, contemporary Marxists, Barthes, and Derrida, structuralists and post-structuralists, totalizers and anti- totalizers alike, all to the trash-heap of interpreters who claim that "One can certainly say what one wants" (p. 266). [15] At this point the reader cannot help but feeling betrayed. ("Verrat!" shrieks Brunnhilde upon seeing Siegfried in Gunther's form.) Throughout Parts One and Two, we are encouraged to believe in androgyny, to see it as the glue that ties together the theoretical and artistic halves of the Wagnerian oeuvre, to understand it as a social and philosophical, even theological symbol that has deep roots in Western culture. Certainly Wagner himself was invested in the nineteenth-century philosophy that found the highest ethical value in transcending sexual difference. Then without warning, without even a hint of what is to come, as we cross the threshhold of the twentieth century, we gradually discover that androgyny is the great villain of our time, the root of all interpretive evil. [16] The ploy has the same effect as Nattiez's use of the Levi-Strauss quotation cited at the beginning of this review. For we as readers learn, at the very end of the chapter on Levi-Strauss, that this quotation is not by the anthropologist at all, but by Wagner! The reason for this deception, according to Nattiez, is that it was the most eloquent possible way "of showing that Wagner was not a precursor of structuralism but that Levi-Strauss is a late Romantic" (p. 253). For subjecting us to this clever ruse Nattiez asks our forgiveness, and I, for one, happily grant it. But I am more concerned when I experience a similar ploy--and one that is surely not intentional on the part of the author--on the global scale of the book: the voice that I thought I was reading transforms into another voice entirely. The voice that stakes its claim for meaning, value and validity in Parts One and Two does so by demonstrating androgyny in the works of Wagner. But this voice turns, without ever saying so, into a voice that condemns androgyny by positing it as the intellectual foundation of all interpretive strategies that putatively destroy meaning, value, and validity altogether. Nattiez thus calls his own voice into question and leaves the reader wondering which voice to trust. All would be well if he were to address this *volte face* straight on, and suggest explicitly that what was a powerful symbol in the nineteenth century has been subverted and turned to what he sees as destructive ends in the twentieth century. But his failure to do so forces us as readers to make the switch ourselves, and it ultimately leaves us without a stable authorial voice upon which we can rely. In the process, we wonder also whether Nattiez's dogged defense of the "objective truth" that he has revealed, as well as his endless attacks on freedom of interpretation, might in fact undermine his whole ongoing semiotic project, which has always relied on a certain fluidity of signifier and signified to make its way in the world. +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ 4. Announcements a. Real Time Composition Library (RTC-lib) for MAX, version 2.2 I would like to announce the new release of my "Real Time Composition Library" (RTC-lib) for MAX, version 2.2. The new version was uploaded to: ftp://ftp.ircam.fr/pub/incoming/max-patches/RTC-lib_2.2.sea and should be moved within the next days to ftp://ftp.ircam.fr/pub/IRCAM/programs/max-patches/composition/ I am especially indebted to Peter Elsea (University of California, Santa Cruz) who implemented some already existing RTC-objects as externals and who gave the permission to include some of his list objects (Lobjects). Description of the RTC-lib ========================== This library (a collection of MAX-patches) offers the possibility to experiment with a number of compositional techniques, such as serial procedures, permutations and controlled randomness. Most of these objects are geared towards straightforward processing of data. By using these specialized objects together in a patch, programming becomes much more clear and easy. Many functions that are often useful in algorithmic composition are provided with this library - therefore the composer could concentrate rather on the composition than the programming aspects. For more information please check the following article on my website: http://www.ping.at/users/essl/works/rtc.html New features of version 2.2 =========================== New objects, enhancements of already existing objects, bug fixes (see release note in the end of this message). A *Tutorial* shows how selected compositorial issues such as harmony, rhythm, and random can be mastered with the aid of the "Real Time Composition Library". Furthermore it contains several especially adapted and documented structure generators from "Lexikon-Sonate" such as Triller, MeloChord, and Esprit. A new version of "Lexikon-Sonate" (1992-95), an infinite interactive realtime composition for computer-controlled piano, now allows to choose between different performance modes (concert, installation, minimal) and to adjust the output to the velocity range of your MIDI-device (player piano, sampler, synthesizer). More informations about "Lexikon-Sonate" can be found at: http://www.ping.at/users/essl/works/Lexikon-Sonate.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- RTC-lib_2.2 (release notes) New objects =========== List Objects * assorted Lobjects by Peter Elsea (Univ. of California, Santa Cruz): Ladd, Lsub, Lmult, Ldiv, Lpow, Lrem, Lround, Labs Transitions * trans-exp (implementation as an external by Peter Elsea): exponential transition between min and max in n steps * trans: general transistion function, covers trans-log, trans-lin, and trans-exp * make-trans-scale: general transistion function for list generation Rhythm Generators * super-rhythm: most general and powerful rhythm generator * ED-rhythm Random * periodic: random number generator Harmony * anti-interval: filters out a certain interval from a stream of notes New implementations =================== * transpose-row (vs. 2): using Peter Elsea's Lobjects, works for lists with up to 64 elements * scale (vs. 2): implementation as an external by Peter Elsea Modified objects ================ * series (vs .3): added outlet shows index of chosen element * sequence (vs. 3): added outlet shows index of chosen element * sel-princ (vs. 2): added outlet shows index of chosen element * xrandom (vs. 2): bug fixed (initialisation); resets its state when a message is sent to the right inlet. * group (vs .2): selection of supply and group size is now done by "series"; second outlet now outputs the index of the chosen supply element. * serial-rhythm (vs. 3): added middle outlet for index of chosen element * alea-rhytm (vs. 3): added middle outlet for index of chosen element ---> BEWARE: changed order of outlets - check your patch-chords! * repeat-ED (vs. 2): bug fixed (argument did not work). Second outlet added - bangs when finished. A "stop"-message sent to the left inlet stops immediately. Bug fixes ========= * repchord-rhythm (vs. 1.1): does not get stuck when periodicity factor is 1 and a change is required. * trans-lin (vs. 3.1): wrong calculation when start value was 0 corrected * schweller (vs. 1.1): now resets when a single parameter changes * cresc-decresc (vs. 1.1): now resets when a single parameter changes * pass-bang (vs. 1.1): argument corrected Dr. Karlheinz Essl SAMT - Studio for Advanced Music Technology (Linz-Hagenberg / Austria) E-Mail: essl@ping.at WWW: http://www.ping.at/users/essl/index.html -------------------------------------------------- b. Rocky Mountain Society for Music Theory: Call for Papers The Rocky Mountain Society for Music Theory is holding its third annual meeting at the University of Arizona in Tucson on April 19-20, 1996. Our keynote speaker will be J. Timothy Kolosick from the University of Arizona. Proposals for papers are welcome on all topics related to music theory, analytic techniques, music theory pedagogy, or technology in music research or pedagogy. Proposals should be 2-3 pages in length (double-spaced) and should contain no references to the author or the author's academic affiliation. Submit five copies of the proposal along with a cover letter identifying your contribution to: Robert Clifford, Program Committee Chair School of Music and Dance University of Arizona Tucson AZ 85721 clifford@ccit.arizona.edu 520-621-2254 Please mark the envelope containing your proposal with "RMSMT Proposal." POSTMARK DEADLINE IS FEBRUARY 1, 1996. For more information about the Rocky Mountain Society for Music Theory, please contact: Steven Bruns College of Music University of Colorado at Boulder 18th & Euclid Campus Box 301 Boulder, CO 80309-0301 bruns@spot.colorado.edu ----------------------------------------------- c. Music and {Con}Text: Art Song in the Twentieth Century CALL FOR PAPERS MUSIC AND {CON}TEXT Art Song in the Twentieth Century A Graduate Student Symposium at Duke University Saturday, March 2, 1996 *In the Keynote Address, renowned American composer NED ROREM will consider the state of art song in our century.* We invite musicologists, performers, and composers as well as interested scholars from other disciplines to participate in a discussion interrogating the concept of the genre 'Art Song' in the twentieth century. Is there such a thing as 20th-century art song? How might we define it? Posing these questions prompts further investigation into the relationships between the repertory and its cultural contexts. Topics of particular interest to the program committee include, but are not limited to, the following: * 'Art song' which attempts to engage popular culture and/or contemporary political issues * Experimentation with non-traditional ensembles * Musical postmodernism * Quotation and borrowing * Questions of 'voice' * The effects of extended vocal technique, electronic media, and/or recording technology on the composition and reception of music and text * Discussions of the 'art song' genre and repertory beyond North America and Western Europe * Problematizing performance Presentations limited to 20 minutes. Send abstracts (250 words) and cover letters (please specify audiovisual needs and include an e-mail address if possible) to Program Committee Art Song in the Twentieth Century Department of Music Box 90666 :: Duke University Durham, NC 27708-0666 Abstracts and cover letters may be submitted via facsimile at 919/660-3301. Questions may be addressed to imgall@acpub.duke.edu DEADLINE: FEBRUARY 1, 1996 ----------------------------------- d. Tonal Structures in Early Music: Provisional Program TONAL STRUCTURES IN EARLY MUSIC University of Pennsylvania Department of Music March 29-30, 1996 Provisional Program ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ================ Friday, March 29 ================ 1:00 Registration 2:00 FOURTEENTH- AND FIFTEENTH-CENTURY SONG "Exploring Tonal Structure in 14th-Century Polyphonic Song" Sarah Fuller (SUNY Stony Brook) "_Prenez sur moi_: the cyclical solution" Stefano Mengozzi (University of Chicago) "Tonal Procedures in Okeghem's _Prenez sur moi_ and Busnoys' _A que ville_" Mary Kathleen Morgan (Univerisity of Pennsylvania) Respondent: Leeman L. Perkins (Columbia University) 4:30 MONTEVERDI (Gary Tomlinson, Chair) "The Rhythm of the Nymph: Long-Range Motion and Coherence in Monteverdi's Lament" Linda Ciacchi (Michigan State University) "Monteverdi and Festa: Towards a Rehabilitation of Motivic Theory in Sixteenth-Century Music" Geoffrey Chew (Royal Holloway College, London) 6:30 Reception ================== Saturday, March 30 ================== 8:00 Registration, Coffee 9:00 SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC (Robert Judd, Chair) "The Missing Flat: The Concept of Key in GB-Och MS 1179" Candace Bailey (Louisburg College) "Tonal Types and Modal Equivalence in Two Keyboard Cycles by Murschhauser" Michael Dodds (Eastman School of Music) "Giovanni-Maria Bononcini's Op. 6 Trio Sonatas and the State of Late 17th-Century Modal Theory in Relation to Compositional Practice" Donald Fader (Stanford University) "Applied Modality in late Seicento Instrumental Music: the theory and practices of G.C. Arresti and G.M. Bononcini" Gregory Barnett (Princeton University) 1:30 MODE AND BEYOND (Cristle Collins Judd, Chair) "The Cycle of Thirds and Tonal Coherence in Josquin des Prez's _Memor esto verbi tui_" Timothy Steele (Palm Beach Atlantic College) "Tonal Coherence and Function in Sixteenth-Century Polyphony" Wolfgang Freis (Chicago) "Internal and External Views of the Modes" Frans Wiering (Utrecht University) 4:30 ROUND TABLE AND DISCUSSION: Tonal Structures in Early Music Cristle Collins Judd (Univerisity of Pennsylvania) Jessie Ann Owens (Brandeis University) Harold Powers (Princeton University) 6:30 Conference Dinner ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For information on registration and accommodation, please contact: Cristle Collins Judd Music Department University of Pennsylvania 201 S. 34th St. Philadelphia, PA 19104-6313 tel: (215) 898-5412 fax: (215) 573-2106 e-mail: cjudd@sas.upenn.edu ---------------------------------------------- e. Georgia Association of Music Theorists: Call for Papers The Georgia Association of Music Theorists (GAMUT) will hold its annual meeting at the University of Georgia in Athens on Friday April 26 - Saturday Arpril 27, 1996. Severine Neff from UNC at Chapel Hill will be the keynote speaker. The tentative meeting schedule includes a panel presentation/discussion on a pedagogical issue Friday evening, a paper session Saturday morning, and the keynote paper titled, "'This I Have Learned From My Students': The Teachings of Arnold Schoenberg" on Saturday afternoon. Address inqueries for further details about the meeting and send papers (limit to 30-45 minutes) and proposals for panel presentation/discussion to: Leonard Ball, Program Chair School of Music University of Georgia Athens, GA 30602 Phone: (706) 542-2800 e-mail: lvball@uga.cc.uga.edu Deadline is Monday, February 26, 1996. The GAMUT Journal welcomes articles dealing with all aspects of music theory, including pedagogy, analysis, history, and book reviews. Contributors should submit three copies anonymously with an identifying cover letter and a short abstract of the article. Manuscripts should be double-spaced with 1-inch margins. Documentation must be complete. Musical examples, tables, and diagrams should be camera-ready. Copyright privileges, if required for publication, should be secured in advance. The Fall 1995 issue is expected to be available by the end of January, 1996. The Editorial Committee for the Fall 1996 issue includes Joseph Auner, David Bernstein, Severine Neff, Frank Samarotto, and Susan Tepping. Deadline for submissions for the 1996 issue is May 31, 1996. Address inquiries for subscriptions, manuscripts, proposals for reviews, or any other reponses and communications to: Kristin Wendland Music Department Morris Brown College 643 Martin Luther King Drive Atlanta, GA 30314 (404) 220-0045 e-mail: muskfwx@gsusgi2.gsu.edu or ir002842@interramp.com ------------------------------------------ f. Music Theory Midwest: Call for Papers CALL FOR PROPOSALS Music Theory Midwest 1996 Annual Meeting Western Michigan University Kalamazoo, Michigan The 1996 conference of MTMW will take place May 17-19 at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. Proposals and abstracts for papers, panels, round-tables, poster sessions or other types of presentations should be sent by February 2, 1996 to the program chair: David Butler School of Music 1866 N. College Rd. The Ohio State University Columbus, OH 43210-1170 Please identify proposals (1000 words maximum) and abstracts (250 words maximum) by cover letter only, and mark envelopes "MTMW Abstract" to ensure anonymity; please enclose 5 copies of the proposal and 1 copy of the abstract. Proposals and abstracts by electronic mail are encouraged: . Please type "MTMW Abstract" in the subject header. Proposals involving special session formats and special topics, including music in popular culture, music theory instruction by non-specialists, and regional folk and popular music are encouraged. Music Theory Midwest welcomes members, from any geographic area, who teach music theory or are interested in music-theoretic issues. Annual dues for 1996 are $15 (regular), $20 (joint), and $5 (student). Dues should be sent to: John Schaffer 1703 Middleton Street Middleton, WI 53562 Members of the 1996 MTMW Program Committee: Claire Boge (Miami University, boge_claire@msmail.muohio.edu); Helen Brown (Purdue University, helen@mace.cc.purdue.edu); James Buhler, Student Representative (University of Pennsylvania, jbuhler@sas.upenn.edu); David Butler (Ohio State University, butler.7@osu.edu); and Gretchen Horlacher (Indiana University, ghorlach@indiana.edu). The Local Arrangements Chair is David Loberg Code (Western Michigan University, CODE@wmich.edu). David Butler O: (614) 292-7321 School of Music H: (614) 488-2420 1866 N. College Rd. fax: (614) 292-1102 Ohio State University Columbus, OH 43210 USA **New address** for our website: http://www.cgrg.ohio-state.edu/other/music/ --------------------------------------------- g. New England Conference of Music Theorists: Call for Papers New England Conference of Music Theorists Eleventh Annual Meeting March 30-31, 1996 Amherst College Robert Morris, keynote speaker Proposals on all topics are invited from interested theorists, both members and non-members of the conference, whether or not they presented papers at NECMT in 1995. Submissions will be read blind; they should contain no identification of the author. With your submission, please include a cover letter giving your name, address, phone number, affiliation, and the title of your proposal. Those who wish to propose papers or topics for sessions should send four copies of a three-to-five-page proposal postmarked by February 1, 1996 to: David Cohen Department of Music Harvard University Music Building Cambridge, MA 02138 Program committee: David Cohen (Harvard University), chair Patrick Miller (Hartt School of Music) Deborah Stein (New England Conservatory) Allan Keiler (Brandeis University), President, ex officio For questions and/or further information, please contact me at the e-mail address below. David Kopp Secretary, NECMT kopp@minerva.cis.yale.edu ------------------------------ h. The Middle Ages in Contemporary Popular Culture: An Interdisciplinary Conference McMaster University Hamilton, Ontario, Canada March 29-31, 1996 Keynote Speaker: Derrick de Kerckhove Director of the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology University of Toronto This conference will explore the general theme of "The Middle Ages in Contemporary Popular Culture." This theme is intended to be as open-ended as possible and will be approached from many directions. Topics include, but are not limited to: *Marketing the Middle Ages in music (Gregorian chant, Hildegard of Bingen), novels, movies,TV series, video games and CD-ROM *New Millenarianisms, Satanic cults and witchcraft *The Middle Ages in nationalist ideologies *The Middle Ages as an attraction for tourists: visits to archeological sites, medieval fairs, feasts and pageants. A number of special cultural events are also planned, including musical performances, films, a display of books, videos and interactive products. To receive further information or a registration form, please contact: Madeleine Jeay Susan Fast Department of French School of Art, Drama and Music McMaster University McMaster University Hamilton, On. Canada L8S 4M2 Hamilton, On. Canada L8S 4M2 Tel: (905) 525-9140 ext. 2375Tel: (905) 525-9140 ext. 23670 e-mail: jeaymad@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca e-mail:fastfs@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca FAX: (905) 577-6930 http:\\www.mcmaster.ca Presented by the McMaster Working Group on the Middle Ages and Renaissance ***************************************************************************= LIST OF PARTICIPANTS AND PAPERS: AVRUTIN Lily, University of Alberta The Artist as God's Fool; The Case of Andrei Roublev by Andrei Tarkovsky BEDARD Marie-Christine, Universite Laval, Quebec Les Medievales de Quebec comme terrain d'experimentation de la communication de l'histoire. BLAIN Jenny, Dalhousie University Witchcraft, Magic and Religion: Some Discursive Reconstructions of Belief and Practice. BRAY Dorothy, McGill University, Montreal The Beowulf Conceit in Terminators 1 and 2. BRENT Robert, University of Western Ontario I'm So Hot for Her and She Is So Cold: Petrarch and the Rolling Stones. CAPPS Sandra E., University of Tennessee, Knoxville Glastonbury: Medieval, Modern and New Age. CASH John, Indiana University Structure and Authenticity in the Current Middle Ages. CHAREST R., Universite Laval, Quebec Perceptions et critiques historiques des "Medievales" dans les medias. DARRUP Cathy C., City University of New York Did God Paint You? The Past as African Identity in Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. de KERCKHOVE Derrick, University of Toronto The Electronic Middle Ages DUFRESNE Lucy, Universite d'Ottawa Which Witch is Which? Recasting Historical Nightmares as Utopian Visions. ERISMAN Wendy, University of Texas at Austin For My Lady's Honour: Gender, Performance and the Reproduction of Social Power in a Medieval Re-Creation Society. EVERETT William A., Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas Images of Arthurian Britain in the American Musical Theatre: A Connecticut Yankee and Camelot. FLINT Catrena, McGill University, Montreal Romancing Hildegard: Postmodern Appropriations of a Medieval Composer GOLINI Vera, St. Jerome's College, Waterloo Petrarch to Elvis, Lyrics Then and Now. GREGORY Christine, Florida Intenational University, Miami "So You Thought WE Have it Bad!" Dysfunctional, Corrupt and Brutal: Medieval Life in the Lion in Winter and Braveheart. HARLEY Maria Anna, McGill University, Montreal Romancing Hildegard: Postmodern Appropriations of a Medieval Composer. JEAY Gregoire, Orchestre Baroque de Montreal Concert with Carolyn Sinclair and the McMaster Dancers. KENDRIS Theodore, Universite Laval, Quebec Merlin, Sherlock Holmes and Mr. Spock: The Three Wise Men of Western Culture. KERSLAKE Geoffrey P., University of Guelph Popular Culture's Ignored Genre: The Middle Ages in Role-Playing Games KNIGHT Graham, McMaster University, Hamilton High-Tech Feudalism: Warrior Culture and Science Fiction Televison. KOLOZE Jeff, Cleveland State University Male "Bondage" or "Bonding": Malory's Depictions of Men and their Relationship to Men of Today. KREUZIGER-HERR Annette, University of Hamburg, Germany The Presence of the Past in the Present; Medieval Music in the Twentieth Century. LEWIS David Charles, University of Toronto The Return of Charlemagne;The Middle Ages, the European Idea and the European Right. LIFSCHITZ Felice, Columbia University Welcome to Medieval Life:Crafts, Dungeons and Instruments of Torture in Sunny Florida. MARKEWITZ Darrell, The Wareham Forge Historical Interpretationand Experimental Archeology in the Society for Creative Anachronism. MULHBERGER Steven, Nipissing University The Middle Ages As They Were or As They Should Have Been? NEWMAN Sharan, University of California, Santa Barbara Beyond Camelot and Chretien de Troyes: A Social Historian's Use of the Novel to Teach the Middle Ages. NOBLE James, University of New Brunswick The Realm of King Arthur in the Silly Season. PEDERSON Kristen, University of Toronto Magic, Power and Women's Sexuality in Medieval Scandinavia. RABINOVITCH Shelley, Universite d'Ottawa Which Witch is Which? Recasting Historical Nightmares as Utopian Visions. RIBORDY Genevieve Universite Laval, Quebec Le guide: un trait d'union entre la culture savante et la culture populaire. ROCHER Marie-Claude Universite Laval, Quebec Fetes populaires et histoire. SAMPLASKI Artie, University of Indiana The Middle Ages, Our Current Age and the Current Middle Ages. SCHUBERT Linda, University of Michigan Plainchant for the Pictures: The Use of the "Dies Irae" in Film Scores. SHARP Michael D., University of Michigan Adventures in the Hypermasculine: Medieval Scotland Goes to the Movies. VALOIS Jeanne, Universite Laval, Quebec La communication de l'histoire par le biais de la fete medievale. WILLARD Tom, University of Arizona Alchemical Gold: Worth More Than Ever. WILSON Robert, City University of New York English Storytelling --Beowulf and Rap. ----------------------------------------- i. History, Music, and the Arts in Germany and Austria, 1815-1848 Illinois Wesleyan University Bloomington, Illinois 30-31 March 1996 For more information, please contact Prof. Michael Cooper by e-mail: mcooper@titan.iwu.edu PROGRAM SATURDAY, 30 MARCH 1996: SESSION I (9:00 a.m.): POLITICAL AND CULTURAL METROPOLES: BERLIN AND VIENNA Elizabeth Paley (University of Wisconsin, Madison): "Music, Such as Charmeth Sleep": Musical Narrative in Mendelssohn's Keith Cochran (University of Mississippi): "A Subject Drawn from our National History": The Libretto for Spontini's R. Larry Todd (Duke University): On the Visual Element in Mendelssohn's Music Marian Wilson (Cornell College): Women, Music, and the Divine: The Female Composer in and Lisa Feurzeig (University of Chicago): Magnetic Illness in Friedrich Schlegel's Circle: The Story of Marie Schmith SESSION II (1:30 p.m.): MUSIC AND THE LITERARY ARTS Jonathan Bellman (University of Northern Colorado): Knights and Gypsies: The Musical Representation of Two German Literary Motifs David L. Mosley (Goshen College): The Wanderer as Topic and Trope in Early Nineteenth-century German Culture Harry E. Seelig (University of Massachusetts, Amherst): Orientalism and the Feminine in Selected German Lieder from 1815 to 1848: Settings of Goethe's by Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Schumann James McGlathery (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign): Wagner's Opera Texts and German Literature John Burchard (Rutgers University): Present at the Creation: Robert Schumann and the Myths Surrounding Schubert and Jean Paul Peter Mercer-Taylor (Valparaiso University): Mendelssohn's Grand Tour and the Italian "Bildungssymphonie" Jurgen Thym (Eastman School of Music): Schubert's Free Verse Settings SUNDAY, 31 MARCH 1996 SESSION III (9:00 a.m.) POLITICS AND THE ARTS Heidi Owen (University of Texas, Austin): Beethoven and the Congress of Vienna: Music, Message, and a New Path Matthew C. Glenn (Pennsylvania State University): German Romanticism and Political Statements in , , and John Sienecke (South Bend, Indiana): 'Round about Metternich: The Subtle Art of Criticism in Some Plays of J. A. Gleich John Daverio (Boston University): Sounds from without the Gate: Schumann and the Dresden Revolution Susanna Lodato (Columbia University): Robert Schumann's Lieder Criticism and German Nationalism Marjanne E. Gooze' (University of Georgia) and Ann Willison Lemke (Hennef, Germany): Music, Literature, and Political Activism in the Lives and Works of Bettine von Arnim and Johanna Kinkel +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ 5. Employment POSITION/RANK: Assistent Professor (full-time tenure-track; subject to budgetary approval by the University), effective July 1, 1996 INSTITUTION: York University (Department of Music, Faculty of Fine Arts) QUALIFICATIONS: The department is seeking an individual who combines professional standing in an academic specialty with professional standing in performance teaching and ensemble direction. Areas of performance may include: jazz; choral; non-western traditions; wind symphony. Academic specialties may include: theory; twentieth-century music; ethnomusicology; jazz studies; musical science and engineering. Candidates should hold a doctoral degree or equivalent. DUTIES: The successful candidate will be expected to provide leadership in large undergraduate class/ensemble instruction, to maintain an active program of scholarly/professional work, and to contribute to the graduate program. Salary commensurate with the qualifications and achievements of the candidate. DEADLINE: February 10, 1996 CONTACT: Candidates should forward a letter of application, along with a curriculum vitae and the names and addresses of three referees to: Professor Robert Witmer, Chair Department of Music Winters College York University 4700 Keele Street North York, Ontario M3J 1P3 Canada York University has implemented a policy of employment equity including affirmative action for women faculty. In accordance with Canadian immigration requirements, this advertisement is directed to Canadian citizens and permanent residents. Rob van der Bliek <> Sound and Moving Image Library Music Librarian <> York University (416) 736-2100 ext 88880 <> 4700 Keele Street bliek@yorku.ca <> Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3 +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ 6. New Dissertations AUTHOR: Fung, Eric W.M. TITLE: The Performance of Chopin's First Movement of Piano Sonata in B Minor, op. 58: A Schenkerian Approach INSTITUTION: The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong. BEGUN: January 1994 COMPLETION: June 1995 ABSTRACT: The objective of this thesis is to explore the application of Schenkerian analysis to performance interpretation. This objective is implemented by conceptualizing the role of analysis in performance--the ideal of applied analysis--and going through three analytical stages. The concept of applied analysis is formulated with reference to a general literature survey on the application of analysis to performance. The three analytical stages include: (1) a study of Schenker's original analysis and performance commentary of Chopin's G-flat major etude, op.10, a summary of some of his essays related to performance, and a summary of Rothstein's study of Schenker's annotation of Beethoven sonatas; (2) a study of the practice of applying Schenkerian analysis to performance by other theorists; and (3) a Schenkerian analysis and performance suggestions of Chopin's B minor sonata (1st mvt) by the present author in the lights of the concept of applied analysis and the principles of deriving performance suggestions formulated in the previous stages. The present study is valuable to those interested in the application of Schenkerian analysis to performance. The ideal of applied analysis, formulated in terms of its relevance to performance issues, its precision in giving performance suggestions, and its capability of offering positive instructions, guides the examination of theoretical works of Schenker himself and of other theorists, and sets the direction for performance interpretations Chopin's sonata movement. The structural features discovered from Schenkerian analysis are found to be relevant and decisive in performance issues such as articulation, temporal nuance, dynamic shading, and the like. The precision of performance suggestions depends on the terms used in one's verbalization. Schenker and other theorists achieve with varying degrees of success in this respect. The ways of giving performance suggestions, of Schenker himself and other theorists, are mostly positive even though some of the suggestions are ambiguous. Interestingly, some theorists tend to make performance suggestions in a negative way that telling performers what not to do. However, the present author contends that performance suggestions, not intended to be binding, should be given positively to avoid ambiguity and abstraction. Players or listeners of Chopin's music can benefit from the analysis and the performance suggestions. The originality offered by the analysis and the performance suggestions should not be underestimated. Although the analysis in this thesis is not the one-and-only reading of the sonata movement, it is unique in its discovery of some structural features not found in other analyses, for example, the subsidiary structural lines in the exposition section, the shifting tonicizing gestures in the development section, and the enlargement found throughout the movement. Some of the performance advices given coincide with the performance instructions of Chopin and those of other interpreter's of Chopin. The use of Schenkerian analysis in performance provides not only a rational basis but also an unique way of interpreting music in performance. KEYWORDS: Schenker, analysis, performance, Chopin, sonata, structural, tonicizing, enlargement TOC: 1 Introduction 2 Schenker's Views on Performance 3 Schenkerian Analysis Applied to Performance 4 The First Movement of Chopin's B Minor Sonata Conclusion Bibliography Appendixes CONTACT: Mr. FUNG, Wai-man Eric, Flat 6C Hip Wo Mansion, 26 Aldrich Street, Shaukeiwan, HONG KONG. ------------------------------------ AUTHOR: Mooney, Kevin TITLE: The Table of Relations and Music Psychology in Hugo Riemann's Harmonic Theory INSTITUTION: Department of Music, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027 BEGUN: May, 1992 COMPLETION: December,1995 ABSTRACT: Hugo Riemann (1849-1919) belonged to an era of positivism during which musicology looked to the models and methods of the natural sciences. True to his time, Riemann attempted to establish a harmonic theory on acoustical and physiological grounds. Finding these grounds inadequate, he later contrued tonal relations psychologically. Riemann's role in the history of music psychology is not well documented probably because his contributions were scattered over an uncommonly prolific and varied publishing career. In this study, we trace the emergence of music psychology in Riemann's harmonic writings, with reference to a construct that reappeared frequently in his work. This construct--the Verwandschaftstabelle, or Table of Relations--had a history prior to Riemann in the music theories of Leonhard Euler (1707-83) and Arthur von Oettingen (1836-1920). Riemann initially used the Table to summarize acoustic relations, but by the end of his career it had become a psychological hypothesis underlying a complex and idiosyncratic theory of harmony. We believe a study of the Table of Relations is corequisite to any full appraisal of Riemann's harmonic theory. KEYWORDS: Tonal pitch space, harmonic function, harmonic dualism, Tonvorstellung, Schritte and Wechsel, group theory, gradus suavitatis, Tonpsychologie TOC: Chapter 1: Leonhard Euler and the "Mirror of Music"; Chapter 2: The Dual Development of Harmony and the Table of Relations; Chapter 3: Musical Logic and Musical Syntax: Two Paradigms of Harmonic Function; Chapter 4: Helmholtz, Riemann, and the Idea of Tonal Representation; Chapter 5: The System of Harmonic Schritte and Wechsel CONTACT: Kevin Mooney, Faculty of Music, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 5R6 (519) 884-1970 x2153, kmooney@mach1.wlu.ca ---------------------------------------------------------- AUTHOR: Moreno, Enrique I. TITLE: Embedding Equal Pitch Spaces and The Question Of Expanded Chromas: An Experimental Approach INSTITUTION: Stanford University CCRMA, Music Dept. Stanford, California 94305 BEGUN: 9/94 COMPLETION: 12/95 ABSTRACT: Traditional tunings are based on the assumption that tones separated by one or more octaves belong to the same pitch class. Here, the concept of equal temperaments is generalized to intervals given by k^(1/m), where k = 3, 5 ,6, 7... N, and n, and m, are natural numbers not equal to x, y (for x, y = 1,2,3 ... N). The resulting tunings, called "expanded tunings" are organized according to the periodicity of k. However, the perceptual organization of such tunings may seem unclear in the absence of powers of two (octaves). k-type intervals (termed "morenoctaves" in the context of an expanded tuning) seem theoretically similar to octaves. Furthermore, a review of the literature reveals that psychoacoustically, there is no reason to reject the similarity of morenoctaves _ a phenomenon termed "expanded chroma" _ provided that certain conditions hold _ for example, that a tuning based on the similarity of morenoctaves does not contain close approximation to octaves. Solutions to practical compositional problems are proposed, and problems concerning notation of expanded tunings are examined. The use of color is proposed as a solution to the dissociation between pitch class and pitch name in tunings with more or less than twelve classes. Several originally composed musical examples are examined in relation to these problems. The dimensionality of pitch is discussed in the light of current models, and a new geometrical, basic three-dimensional model of pitch _ instead of the traditional two-dimensional one _ is proposed as a better means to represent expanded chromas. A paradigm of empirical research, based on this model is explained in relation to the problem of obtaining experimental evidence for the cognitive reality of expanded chroma. The results of three experiments show that, among trained musicians, some subjects (at least 24%) have a strong spontaneous relative sense of expanded chroma because they are capable of recognizing the similarity of harmonic functions of a fragment of music in expanded tunings under the operation of rigid transposition, and _ with much more difficulty _ under the operation of rigid chord inversion. This means that perception of the dimension of chroma in music _ hitherto unexplored _ is a capability of the human mind, and that expanded tunings can be coherent. KEYWORDS: Theoretical Intonation, Tuning Theory, Music Cognition, Music Perception, TOC: Abstract iv Dedication v Foreword and Acknowledgements vi Chapter One: Theoretical Introduction to Expanded Tunings 1.1 General Structure of Expanded Tunings 1 1.2 Definition of An Equal Tuning T 3 1.3 Primary Interval Lemma 4 1.4 Harmonic Location Theorem 5 1.5 Redundancy Theorem 8 1.6 Intervals of Equivalence 9 1.7 Equivalence Intervals and Their Terminology 12 1.8 Definition of Fully Expanded Tunings Te 16 1.9 Expanded Tunings Not as nth roots of k 17 1.10 Arbitrary Non-Octave Intervals of Equivalence 18 1.11 Cubic Equivalence Inferred from Square 19 1.12 Intervals of Equivalence Justified by Prescribed Overtone Structure 20 Chapter Two: Theoretical Introduction to Expanded Chromas 2.1 The Chroma Phenomenon 23 2.2 Theories of Octave Equivalence 26 2.3 Coincidence of Partials or Total Consonance 27 2.4 Observation to 2.3 27 2.5 Repetition Rate 29 2.6 Observation to 2.5 29 2.7 Activity of a Central Pitch Processor 30 2.8 Observation to 2.7 30 2.9 Uniqueness 30 2.10 Observation to 2.9 30 2.11 Initial Hypotheses 31 Chapter Three: Practical Introduction to Expanded Tunings 3.1 Implementation of Expanded Tunings 35 3.2 Selecting One Tuning among Many Other Possible Tunings 38 3.3 The Music Notation Problem 42 3.4 Expanded Notation 44 3.5 Rules for The Use of Color in Music Notation 47 Chapter Four: Practical Introduction to Expanded Chromas 4.1 Practical Meaning of Expanded Chroma 49 4.2 Musical Examples: Example One 53 4.3 Musical Examples: Examples Two, Three and Four 55 4.4 Finding Optimal Tunings for Expanded Chroma 58 4.5 Avoiding The Interference of Foreign Chromas 63 4.6 Discussion: Is Perception of Expanded Chroma Possible? 68 Chapter Five: Experimental Introduction to Expanded Chromas 5.1 Introduction 71 5.2 Pitch Dimensions 72 5.3 Definition of Morenoctaves 73 5.4 The Three Hypothesized Dimensions of Pitch on The Helix 74 5.5 Revised Model of The Fundamental Pitch space 82 5.6 Overtone Structure and Expanded Chroma 83 5.7 Some Definitions of Experimental Terms 86 5.8 Experimental Pre-Requisites for Subjects 87 5.9 General (Formal) Hypothesis 88 5.10 Design of The Main Experiment 89 5.11 Ancillary Experiments 90 Chapter Six: Experiment One 6.1 Design 93 6.2 Methodology 96 6.3 Description of The Computer Program Interface for Experiment One 98 6.4 Musical Fragments (Stimuli) 110 6.5 Subjects 112 6.6 Randomization in The Order of Presentation of Musical Stimuli 114 6.7 Data Collected 114 6.8 Expected Theoretical Distribution 115 6.9 Main Experimental Hypothesis 118 6.10 Results Per Subjects 118 6.11 Results Per Trial 126 6.12 Other Related Results 135 6.13 Discussion on Consonance/Dissonance and The Validity of Results 137 6.14 Experiment One: Summary and Conclusions 139 Chapter Seven: Experiments Two, Three, and General Conclusions 7.1 Design of Experiment Two 141 7.2 Results of Experiment Two 143 7.3 Design of Experiment Three 145 7.4 Results of Experiment Three 152 7.5 General Conclusions 157 References 161 Appendices 167 (Includes cassette tape with original examples) CONTACT: Enrique I Moreno 724 Arastradero Apt. 206 Palo Alto, CA 94306 Tel. (415) 813 9750 Fax (415) 723-8468 e-mail: eig@ccrma.stanford.edu ------------------------------------------------------- AUTHOR: Seltzer, Linda, A. TITLE: The Unblinking Eye, Literary Theory in the Analysis of Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande INSTITUTION: Princeton University, Department of Music, Princeton, NJ 08544 BEGUN: September 1991 COMPLETION: Depends on Funding ABSTRACT: In Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande the analysis of musical structure may be informed by the study of its literary content. If the characters in this opera, along with their statements, actions, and environs are viewed as symbolic rather than realistic, a world of interpretation is suggested. When the action of the symbol and its loci of suggestion are examined in light of theories of literature and art, problematic passages in the text may be seen as belonging to a coherent and carefully worked out (and perhaps too contrived) structure of literary composition. Debussy's musical design - scene painting, orchestral commentary, and characteristic phrases - can then be explored, with respect to this structure. In the first chapter, The Crown in the Water, the theories of Northrop Frye are applied, demonstrating that the playwright ingeniously sets the stage for myth and romance and then proceeds to undermine these forms by means of irony. The result is a pessimistic portrayal of a society in which traditional sources of authority and truth are powerless and ethical systems are contradictory. Maeterlinck's other plays are then cited in support of this theory. In contrast to traditional critical views of Melisande as a lover and a temptress, I present the view that she is a symbol of the breakdown of external sources of ethical authority. In the second chapter, The Unblinking Eye, this powerful image is traced through Faust and through the writings of Derrida and Husserl as a symbol of a transcendental and eternal moment, an experience which eludes Melisande and the humanity she represents. The third chapter, The Stars and the Lantern: Opera as Painting, is an interpretation of the imagery of the opera. Interpretation in in light of the theories of Delbord, Crary, and Fried results in a pessimistic view of modernity. The phenomenological analysis as explored by Bachlard, tracing the action of images as stimuli to reflection, reveal that the source of optimism in the play is in the internal creative imagination. Chapter 4 describes how many of the devices considered eccentric or idiosyncratic in Maeterlinck's drama are found readily in Asian drama and art. Chapter 5 situates the text in the politics and culture of its times, showing that its ironic themes rendered it ripe for acceptance in France by those disillusioned with the Third Republic. The second half of the dissertation is focussed on musical analysis, on the way Debussy "continues" and comments on Maeterlinck's words. This section will include an exploration of the applicability of Julia Kristeva's analysis of the procedures of Symbolist poetry, semiotic views of literary content in music, and Bregman's theory of auditory scene analysis. The goal of the dissertation is a detailed musical analysis and close reading of the entire opera. KEYWORDS: music and text, literary theory, musical analysis TOC: I. The Crown in the Water II. The Unblinking Eye III. The Stars and the Lantern IV. Chapter on analysis from the viewpoint of Asian aesthetics V. Chapter on cultural history VI ff. Musical analyses CONTACT: Linda Seltzer E-mail: lseltzer@phoenix.princeton.edu U.S. mail: P.O. Box 414, Princeton, NJ 08542 ------------------------------------------------------ AUTHOR: Spicker, Volker TITLE: New Piano Improvisation INSTITUTION: Institute of Musicology University of Giessen Karl-Gloeckner-Strasse 21 D D-35439 Giessen G E R M A N Y BEGUN: June 1995 COMPLETION: end of 1997 ABSTRACT: In my final work of my studies in musicology I investigated the new forms of piano-improvisation of Cecil Taylor regarding to his stylistic features, techniques, structure and their consequences for the forms of piano improvisation in jazz. New Piano Improvisation is not only played by jazz-musicians but also by pianists of the "academic artificial" scene, such as David Tudor and Hermann Keller e.g. Next to the detailed analyses of the music the main questions I prepare to answer in my dissertation are: - How does one improvise without a plan or given structure (e.g. changes, themes...) ? - Which are the stylistic features who decide about the genre (jazz / New Music)? - How do jazz musicians distinguish from the others? - Are there influences remarkable - which? - Are there psychological, sociological or other bases for improvisation and= its stylistic features? - What is typical for New Piano-Improvisation and what is not? KEYWORDS: Improvisation, Free Improvisation, Free Jazz, New Music, techniques, stylistic features, analyses of improvisation, transcription, instant composing, composing-improvising, form, stucture, material. TOC: 1. Cecil Taylor 2. Alexander von Schlippenbach 3. Yosuke Yamashita 4. Joachim Kuhn 5. David Tudor 6. Irene Schweizer 7. Hermann Keller 8. Aki Takase 9. Dieter Glawischnig and more... CONTACT: Volker Spicker Schillerstrasse 48 D-35428 Langgons G E R M A N Y E-mail: Voice: +49 6403 78075 Fax: +49 6403 78075 by app. only ------------------------------------------- AUTHOR: Wang, Yuhwen TITLE: "The Value of Values: Value Judgment in Edward T. Cone's Music Analyses" INSTITUTION: Columbia University, Music Department New York, New York 10027 BEGUN: September, 1995 COMPLETION: 1996 ABSTRACT: This dissertation aims to study the relationship between music analysis and the aesthetic values assumed in such analysis. The focus is placed on the analyses and criticisms of Edward T. Cone. In particular, the dissertation tries to detect (1) what his values are, and how values are revealed or reflected in his analyses, (2) how these values illuminate his analyses, and (3) whether these values play a determining role in his analyses, why and how. Rather than discussing the philosophical nature of value judgment and contemplating its relationship with analysis, as Carl Dahlhaus did in his book , this dissertation offers an empirical case study by focusing on Cone's works. It will first explicate the musical values Cone allegedly holds. Then it will examine Cone's analytical writings closely, so that the relationship between his analysis and values can be revealed. Finally, the dissertation will determine the role value judgment plays in Cone's analyses. KEYWORDS: value judgment, music aesthetics, Edward T. Cone, criticism. TOC: 1. Introduction: problems in neglecting the input of values in theory and analysis; the distinction between fact and value 2. The roles of analysis and criticism, and their relation to value judgment, as Cone asserts 3. Values explained in Cone's writings, and relation among these various values 4. Cone's analyses of music without text 5. Cone's analyses of music with text 6. The role of values in Cone's analyses and criticisms; Implication for distinguishing between fact and value in music analysis CONTACT: P.O. Box 20-49, Hualien, Taiwan Voice & Fax: (886) 38-227030 E mail: tmsheu@cc.nhltc.edu.tw +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ 7. Communications 1. *MTO* welcomes new staff 2. New hardware added 3. Dissertation Index 4. *MTO* sounds off! 5. MIDI files available ------------------------ 1. *MTO* welcomes new staff A few new staff members have been added to the *MTO* team at UCSB: Cindy Nicholson, Nicholas Blanchard, both graduate students in music theory, and William Loewe, a graduate student in composition. Nicholson joins Ralph Steffen in copyediting, and Blanchard does HTML formatting. Loewe is our new Music Example Designer. He created the musical examples for this issue using Finale. Thanks to all three for their help in preparing volume 2.1! 2. New hardware added A few weeks ago we added a two-gigabyte external disk to boethius, the SMT networking host.. The ever expanding volume of files for *MTO*, including the anticipated audio files, will require more storage space. Further, additional administrative, application, and server software was pushing the limits of the originally configured space for such items. The new disk (Seagate SCSI) will give us the flexibility to try out new things without the worry of exceeding the limits in any area of boethius's file system. 3. Dissertation Index One of the jobs assigned to our new HTML formatter, Nicholas Blanchard, was to convert the plain-text version of the *MTO* Dissertation Index into an HTML document. That job has been completed, and there is now a link on our home page for the Index. The URL is http://boethius.music.ucsb.edu/mto/docs/diss-index.html. Each entry in the Index ends with a link to the file containing the original dissertation listing. Since those files are in plain-text format, it was not possible to create a link pointing directly at the selected dissertation data. Once readers have followed a link from the new Index, they can either use their browser's "Find" command to locate the disertation listing, or can simply scroll through the listings, which are ordered alphabetically. Eventually, we hope to convert all the files to HTML format, and will then revise the Index links to point directly at the proper locations. While on the topic of HTML-formatted indices, I should point out that we offer an up-to-date hypertext index of all essays, reviews, and commentaries published in the journal, and another of all HTML-formatted items published so far. Links for both indices are on our home page. Please report typographical errors and incorrect hypertext links to Robert Judd, *MTO* Manager. 4. *MTO* sounds off! One of the reasons for equipping boethius with a new disk was to accomodate sound files. In this issue we offer sound files for John Rothgeb's commentary on an article by Eytan Agmon. The files are in MIDI format (Musical Instrument Digital Interface). They are small because they consist of coded instructions that drive a MIDI instrument, not of actual recorded sounds, as in .au and other formats, which are huge in size by comparison. The HTML version of Rothgeb's commentary has links to the MIDI files alongside the links to the musical examples. Subscribers who have MIDI-enabled computers will be able to play the music by clicking on the links. Those who lack the soft and hardware should read Robert Judd's message below. 5. MIDI files available With *MTO* 2.1 we've decided to include a few MIDI files by way of "trial run"; they are part of John Rothgeb's essay, and consist of data to enable playback of the examples through a MIDI device. Readers can hear, as well as see, the examples in a format much less cumbersome than regular sound files (.au or .wav formats). That is, to listen to a ten-second example using .au format one must download an enormous file (over 100kb); the equivalent data in MIDI form is only about 2kb. As for sound quality: it's a compromise, but not as much as one might initially suppose. The sound is entirely dependent on the quality of the instrument with the MIDI connection. If you have a Steinway grand with MIDI installed, the playback will be quite satisfactory. If your MIDI keyboard is less substantial, the sound won't be quite so attractive! But, for example, Yamaha Clavinovas produce a quite respectable sound, and may be found in a number of computer/music labs. In any case, the point isn't to produce commercial-recording-quality sound, but serviceable sound in an efficient manner. Those who use sequencing or notation software and a keyboard or other MIDI instrument will have no difficulty hearing the files; simply configure your web browser to open the sequencer or notation program when it reads .mid files, then select "playback" from within the application to hear the file. Even if you only have a "multimedia" setup that plays CDs, you may still be able to hear the files if your sound card includes a synthesizer. For this possibility, consult your documentation, as individual setups vary. If you have neither, to hear the sounds you need to get a MIDI instrument, a "soundblaster" or similar sound card (PC), or MIDI interface (Mac), and a program that can read MIDI files (all sequencing programs do so, as do most notation programs, e.g. Finale). The total outlay could amount to $500 (unless you opt for the Steinway!). The sound files are obviously an ancillary part of Rothgeb's essay, and readers may not want to trouble themselves over it. However, the prospects for MIDI files and *MTO* remain intriguing, and the editors would be grateful for feedback on the matter. What do you think? Lee A. Rothfarb, General Editor Robert Judd, *MTO* Manager *Music Theory Online* University of California, Santa Barbara mto-editor@boethius.music.ucsb.edu mto-manager@boethius.music.ucsb.edu +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ 8. Copyright Statement [1] *Music Theory Online* (MTO) as a whole is Copyright (c) 1996, all rights reserved, by the Society for Music Theory, which is the owner of the journal. Copyrights for individual items published in MTO are held by their authors. Items appearing in MTO may be saved and stored in electronic or paper form, and may be shared among individuals for purposes of scholarly research or discussion, but may *not* be republished in any form, electronic or print, without prior, written permission from the author(s), and advance notification of the editors of MTO. [2] Any redistributed form of items published in MTO must include the following information in a form appropriate to the medium in which the items are to appear: This item appeared in *Music Theory Online* in [VOLUME #, ISSUE #] on [DAY/MONTH/YEAR]. It was authored by [FULL NAME, EMAIL ADDRESS], with whose written permission it is reprinted here. [3] Libraries may archive issues of MTO in electronic or paper form for public access so long as each issue is stored in its entirety, and no access fee is charged. Exceptions to these requirements must be approved in writing by the editors of MTO, who will act in accordance with the decisions of the Society for Music Theory. +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ END OF MTO 2.1 (mto.pak.96.2.1)