INTRODUCTION TO

a Philosophy of Music

PETER KIVY

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r

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CLARENDON PRESS · OXFORD

 CONTENTS

Preface vii L-

I Philosophy of . .. ~

2 A Little History -r:.· 14

1
3 Emotions in the Music • 31
4 A Little More History 49
5 Formalism 67
6 Enhanced Formalism 88

7 The Emotions in you lIO

8 Foes of Formalism 135

9 First the Words; Then the Music 160
IO Narration and Representation ~ 182
II The Work 202
12 And the Performance thereof 224
13 Why should you Listen? 251

Readings and References 264

Index 275
 CHAPTER I

Philosophy of. • •

If you think that what I say is true, agree with me; if not,
oppose it with every argument and take care that in my eager-
ness I do not deceive myself and you and, like a bee, leave my
sting in you when I go .
.) er J Socrates (according to Plato), trans . G.M .A. Grube

If someone who doesn't know how to cook should buy a cookbook,

she hardly expects, on opening it, to find the first chapter devoted to
the question of what cooking is. Presumably, she already knows that
much about the subject.
But it is quite likely that someone who buys a book called
Introduction to a Philosophy ofMusic will not only not know what the
philosophy of music is; she will not know what philosophy is either.
So it seems not altogether inappropriate to begin with such a
chapter as this. However, it is part of the nature of philosophy that to
tell what philosophy is is itself a daunting task. It is itself a disputed
question in the practice of philosophy, which immediately makes it
look as if we are going around in a circle, since I will already be doing
philosophy in trying to tell my reader what philosophy is.
Well, what of that? Perhaps the best way of learning what some
subject is is to see it pursued. So in trying to give my reader a pre-
liminary idea of what philosophy is I will not only be telling; I will be
showing, by example, as it were, as well.
What is philosophy then? There are many ways of approaching
the question. Here is one.
 It is an obvious fact of English grammar that one can put the Second, a precept like 'Hit 'em where they ain't' strikes us as
phrase 'philosophy of .. .'in front of all sorts of nouns. But it is also something we would tend to preface with 'needless to say.' It is so
an obvious fact of philosophy that not every such combination con- obvious that the point ofbatting is to 'Hit 'em where they ain't' that
I
stitutes a branch of the subject, as now practiced. Some of the cur- it is tacitly assumed: 'it goes without saying.'
rently recognized specialities in philosophy are the philosophy Third, however, vacuous though it might seem to be, on first
of science, the philosophy of history, the philosophy of art, the I reflection, 'Hit 'em where they ain't,' if reflected upon more fully,
philosophy of education . But there is no philosophy of baseball or may seem ultimately to cast explanatory light on all of the things the
philosophy of sewage or philosophy of shoes. Why not? There's batting coach has been telling the aspiring hitter. They are all now
nothing wrong with the grammar. seen as being to that end. It all at once becomes clear 'what it's all
Not only is there nothing wrong with the grammar, there are ' about.' In other words, 'Hit' em where they ain't' seems to be a very
I occasions on which such phrases as 'the philosophy of baseball,' or basic characterization of baseball: an ultimate principle, so to speak;
., 'the philosophy of sewage,' or 'the philosophy of shoes' might well the ultimate justification for everything else the batting coach tells
II be heard, not uttered by philosophers, to be sure, but by other, the hitter. So it would appear to be the case that in calling 'Hit 'em
perfectly qualified users of the English language. A sportswriter where they ain't' Keeler's 'philosophy ofbaseball,' we are according
11
might be emboldened to describe 'Wee Willie' Keeler's well-known it the status of a foundational axiom: something from which every-
description of his practice, 'Hit ' em where they ain't,' as encapsulat- thing else follows . It is so basic it hardly needs stating; but stating
ing his 'philosophy of baseball,' and we would all know what was it brings a form of enlightenment we would not have had were it
meant, even the philosophers, in spite of it nevertheless being true, to have been left, as it normally is, unspoken.
at least at the present time , that there is no philosophy of baseball Of course there might be other 'philosophies' of baseball as well.
taught in our colleges and universities, along with the philosophy of Perhaps 'A good defense is the best offense' is the infield coach's
art and the philosophy of history and the rest. Is it possible that we 'philosophy of baseball.' Again, it is not much use in teaching the
might get a handle on what philosophy is by taking a look at what it third baseman how to protect the line or the second baseman how
might mean, for example, to say of Keeler's 'Hit 'em where they to avoid the runner's slide in turning a double play. And these latter
ain't' that it is his philosophy ofbaseball, even though, in fact, there skills are what the infielders look to their coach to impart. 'A good
11
is no philosophy ofbaseball? Let's see. defense is the best offense' is a mere platitude from the point of view
A number of things might strike one about 'Hit 'em where they of practice: a truism that hardly requires stating. But, like 'Hit 'em
ain't' as advice to an aspiring baseball-player. First of all, it's really a where they ain't,' it can be seen, when brought to light, as a basic
useless bit of advice after all. If a player should go to baseball camp to premise from which all else follows. It may become the infielders'
learn how to be a good hitter, he wants practical advice about where 'Liberte, egalite, fraternite.' It makes them see 'what it's all about.'
i to place his feet, how to swing the bat, what he is now doing wrong 'A good defense is the best offense' may become in that way the
II in these departments, and so forth . If all the batting coach could infielders' 'philosophy ofbaseball.'
11
offer was 'Hit 'em where they ain't,' he wouldn't be much use. It ~ So it begins to look as if those uninitiated into the mysteries
seems a vacuous truism. \ of 'philosophy' nevertheless know how to apply the word in a way

2 ~ Philosophy of . .. Philosophy of. . . ~ 3

 quite understandable to competent users of the language, including However, some sustained reflection on the consequentialist first
the philosophers. There is no reason even for philosophers to think principle may lead one to a degree of illumination: may lead one to
they are misapplying the word. Furthermore, it is reasonable to sup- reach moral conclusions one might not have reached otherwise.
pose that at least part of the meaning or connotation of the word Lying is wrong, we have all been taught; and we have been taught,
'philosophy' carries over from the discipline of philosophy to ordin- too, not to cause pain to others- two moral precepts as obvious as
ary life and ordinary usage, or vice versa. So it is also reasonable to the consequentialist one. But what to do when telling the truth will
suppose that we can learn something about the word's meaning or cause pain to others and lying will prevent it? Both alternatives seem
connotation by extrapolating either from philosophy to ordinary wrong and right. The consequentialist first principle suggests to us
life and usage or from ordinary life and usage to philosophy. And, how to solve this moral dilemma . We must choose the alternative
since it is the discipline of philosophy I am trying to explain to that will produce the best consequences all around. We must calcu-
people who don't know what it is, but are competent users of the late the consequences oflying, and of telling the truth, and choose
English language, and do know what it means to say that Keeler's the alternative producing the best, or the least bad.
'philosophy ofbaseball' is 'Hit' em where they ain't,' it is from ordin- Thus the consequentialist first principle, those actions are mor-
ary life and usage that I hope to get a hint, and give a hint, about the ally right that, overall, have the best consequences as compared to
discipline of philosophy. the alternatives, vacuous though it may seem at first, and hardly
'Hit' em where they ain't, ' Keeler's 'philosophy ofbaseball,' has in worth making explicit, turns out to be a foundational principle
common with many basic statements in the discipline of philosophy in the philosophy of morality, from which other principles can be
the seeming vacuousness, the feeling that 'this goes without saying,' derived, and which casts broad illumination on our moral practices.
and, for all of that, the enlightening effect that comes with sub- It is in these respects that it resembles 'Hit ' em where they ain't', and
sequent reflection. Furthermore, it has in common the nature of 'Hit 'em where they ain't' resembles it.
;>.
~ being a basic truth, a fou_!ldatio_nal_axiom: that from ~hich the other But, just as there are other 'philosophies of baseball' besides
~ pr~cep_!s and rinciples of the practice or discipline follow. Keeler's, there are other philosophies of morality besides con-
Consider an example. In the philosophy of morals, more com- sequentialism. That, however, need not detain us. For they will all
monly called 'moral philosophy' or 'ethics,' there is a widely held have precepts and principles w ith more or less the same character-
theory that says that those actions are morally right actions that istics of seeming vacuousness, the absence of need even to be expli-
have, overall, the best total consequences. The theory, not surpris- citly stated, and the ultimate power to illuminate crucial aspects of
ingly, is known as 'consequantialism.' But its basic premise seems what they underlie. These characteristics may not explain what philo-
every bit as vacuous a truism, initially, as 'Hit' em where they ain't.' sophy really is, or why it is, but they do seem partly to characterize
In effect, all it seems to say is: 'Do what will turn out to be best.' Do what philosophy contains: what it is like. And the recognition of this,
I need a philosopher to tell me this? As well, like 'Hit' em where they even though we may not be fully aware of it, is why, I think, we refer
ain't,' it would seem to ' go without saying'; hardly to require explicit to precepts like 'Hit' em where they ain't' and 'A good defense is the
statement at all. Ofcourse it is the point of moral reflection to tell us best offense' as 'philosophies ofbaseball.'
what we should do to make things turn out for the best. That is an An important caveat, however, must now be entered. I am not
underlying assumption too obvious to require uttering out loud. saying that the philosophy of anything consists merely in these

4 - Philosophy of . . . Philosophy of. . . - 5

foundational precepts and principles about which I have been To instance a particularly relevant case in point, it is not stretch-
speaking. Any philosophy worth the name consists of a great deal ing a point too far to say that Plato (427-347 ac) had a 'philosophy of
more than that: and principally of complex systems of arguments gymnastics' that, in his most famous work, The Republic, formed a
and inferences. For it is characteristic of philosophy, at least as it is part ofboth a philosophy of education and a philosophy of the state,
practiced in English-speaking countries today, and as it has been which is to say, a political philosophy. Why did Plato have a philoso-
practiced, all over Europe, since antiquity, that claims are not made phy of gymnastics, and why is such a thing no longer a part of our
without reasons to back them up, or without reasons why we should philosophical practice?
not expect them to be backed up. In a word, the philosophy of any- It appears to me that the answer must have something to do with
thing is a system of thought of which the foundational statements the role that gymnastics, and other athletic pursuits, played in the
I have been talking about are a prominent and essential part~ lives of the Athenian citizens, in Plato's time , and the role they
The reader may now fairly ask, however, why, if 'Hit 'em where play- or, rather,fail to play-in our lives and times. In a word, they
they ain't' and 'A good defense is the best offense' are like founda- were an integral part of the very being of the Athenian citizenry,
tional statements in recognized areas of philosophy, there really isn't seen by Plato not merely as an entertainment or a relaxing pastime,
a philosophy ofbaseball, properly so-called, as there is a philosophy but as a builder of moral character. Our educators sometimes pay lip
of morality or a philosophy of science? If there are 'philosophical' service to that idea- ' a sound mind in a sound body' they say in the
precepts and principles in baseball, why are they only 'philosophy' in catalogue-but we know better: we know perfectly well that they
an attenuated sense. Why is the philosophy ofbaseball not a part of do not mean it; that 'sports' are a profession for their participants
the curriculum in my university? If there are 'philosophical' precepts and an entertainment for the rest of us. There can be no philosophy
in the practice of baseball, doesn't it follow that there is a 'philo- of that except in the attenuated sense in which Keeler had a 'philo-
sophy' of baseball? What more is needed to turn the 'philosophy' of sophy' ofbaseball.
baseball metaphorically so-called into the philosophy of baseball A practice or discipline or body of knowledge , then, seems to!
properly so-called: philosophy in the literal sense of the word? become 'eligible' (if that is the right word) for philosophy, properly
To begin to answer this question, I will revert to something I said so-called, when it becomes for us a way oflife; when it cuts so deeply
at the very beginning of this chapter. I said, it will be recalled, that mto our natures as human beings that we are impelled to explore
one can obviously join any noun to the phrase 'philosophy of . . .' and reveal its innermost workings.
with grammatical correctness. But, I added, it is also an obvious fact If what I have said so far is close to the truth, then we can say
of philosophy, at least obvious to philosophers, that not every such that philosophical theories and analyses tend to consist, on first
combination constitutes a branch of the subject, asitis now practiced. reflection, of, among other things, vacuous truisms that hardly need
I added that qualification then, and underscore it now to convey an stating, but that, on further reflection, and developed into systems
important truth about philosophy: what can be a philosophical of assertions and inferences, come to be seen as foundational beliefs,
practice in the literal sense, and what cannot, is not fixed forever. casting light on the superstructure they support. Such foundational
The philosophy of something may be philosophy in one period and beliefs, apparent platitudes, occur in all manner ofhuman practices,
cease to be in another. The philosophy of something else may never witness Keeler's 'Hit 'em where they ain't.' But they begin to
have been philosophy but may come to be now or in the future. become the philosophy ofsome human practice when that practice
,;11.·,-1 'I ' \. \, ' II • I' ~· ' l ;,.',
6 ~ Philosophy of . .. Philosophy of. . . ~ 7
 I 1
is seen as deeply implicated in our lives, even to the extent of helping music.' (We shall have occasion to look at some aspects of it in the
to define s s human beings. And that is why there is, at the present next chapter. )
time, a philosophy of science, a philosophy of art, a philosophy of When the modern system of the arts was formulated, in the eight-
morality, but not a philosophy ofbaseball. eenth century, with music among them, music had a philosophy,
We can now ask, with some understanding of what we are asking, since the fine arts had a philosophy, much in the same way that it had
What about the philosophy of music? a philosophy for Plato, since it was a craft, and craft had a philosophy:
The philosophy of music, if there is such a practice or discipline, But in at least one very important respect, the place of music in
would consist, in part, of the same kinds of foundational axioms, philosophy was very different in the eighteenth century from what it
and inferences from them, as any other subject susceptible of a was in the work of Plato. It had , in effect, fallen from grace, and was
philosophical study in the first place. But is it susceptible of such a considered worthy of only scant attention. It was, by universal con-
philosophical study? Or is it, like Keeler's philosophy of baseball, sent, the 'lowest' of the fine arts and was treated by philosophers
merely a 'philosophy' in a jocular, half-humorous way? In other accordingly.
words: Does music strike deep enough into human bedrock that, Since the eighteenth century music has had a spotty history in
like morality or science, it can be seen as partially defining our lives? the works of the philosophers. From time to time a philosopher of
Before I try to answer that question a slight detour is required. the first rank has taken a particular interest in it. More often than not
Since about the middle of the eighteenth century, we have come it has been given but a casual nod in passing. It has, by and large,
to see literature, drama, painting, sculpture, dance, architecture, hung on by its fingernails just because it is a fine art and fine art has
and music as all belonging to the same group of practices that we a philosophy.
II call, in English, the 'fine arts.' But it was not always thus. Plato did Until a short time ago, it remained true that, with few exceptions,
not group all of these together. Music and the visual arts he con- those who wrote on the philosophy of art wrote little on the art of
sidered 'crafts,' like shoemaking or pottery-techne in Greek, from music (and when they did, with little real musical knowledge).
which we get words like 'technique' and 'technical.' Poetry, on the Indeed, I cannot imagine a publisher even thinking about com-
other hand, including drama, he classed with prophecy as an 'inspira- missioning an introduction to the philosophy of music until almost
tional' practice. the day before yesterday. But now music has emerged from its
So for Plato music fell under the philosophy of craft; in this case philosophical obscurity and, not gained, but regained its rightful
the craft of representation or 'mimesis.' And he had a philosophy of place . Why and how?
music, therefore, by implication, since he had a philosophy of craft, Well, if it is the case, as I have suggested, that a human practice
and music was one. becomes subject to a philosophy when it becomes a way of human
But, because music played such an important part in the lives of life, deeply implicated in how we define ourselves as human beings,
the ancient Athenians, and in their education, music, as a craft, was then it must be the case that, in the last twenty or thirty years, or, at
I given special attention by Plato: very close scrutiny. So it is fair to say least, in the fairly recent past, music has achieved such a status. But
11
that Plato not only had a philosophy of music because he had a that doesn't sound right. Surely music, like art itself, stretches back
philosophy of craft, and music was one. He had, as well, what can with into the dim prehistory of the race, and spreads itself over the entire
some justification be called a more or less separate 'philosophy of globe. In other words, there never has been, anywhere, a culture

I
8 - Philosophy of . .. Philosophy of. . . - 9

!.
without its music; and that music penetrates to our blood and bones This interest in the history of music, and its place in our lives and
hardly, I think, needs argument. culture, began to accelerate towards the middle of the nineteenth
We might usefully compare the philosophy of music, in the pre- century; with the development of the academic disciplines of his-
sent regard, to the philosophy of science. The philosophy of science torical and ethno-musicology: that is to say, academic disciplines
really does illustrate and support the claim that a practice or discip- devoted solely to the history of Western music, and the systematic
line becomes a potential subject of a philosophy when it becomes a study of non-Western musical traditions. The growth of music-
major and fundamental part of our lives. For the philosophy of sci- ology in our own times has been more rapid still, and its increasing
ence has indeed emerged in lock step with the emergence of science concern with the relation of music to other human practices a
itself as a major player in our lives. ,f. notable development. It is, I therefore suggest, the musicologists
But music shows no such history as that of the growth of natural ave in the last half of the twentieth century; prepared ili;
science. What I think it shows is not, so to speak, a 'participation his- ground for the re-emergence of philosophy of music as a discipline
tory' but a 'recognition history.' As science has grown, and its prac- in i~s own ~ight, libernted from the philosophy of art as a whole, of l
tical applications, so also has grown its participation in our lives. which, until recently; 1t had been for a very long time but a minor
Music, however, has always been there. What has not been there is appendage. It is historical musicology and ethno-musicology that
the recognition of the fact. Thus, we must revise somewhat our have made us keenly aware of what has always been so: that music is
claim that for a practice to become susceptible of a philosophy it a deep and abiding force in the human family, no matter when or •
must become part of our lives. What also must happen is that it be where that family has flourished. Were it not for the musicologists,
~ed, that it has become so, or, as in the case of music,
I don't think the ensuing pages would have been possible.
that it has been so all along. By dint of the musicologists, then, music has gained its recogni-
But it may well be asked whether there is anything to back up my tion; and in virtue of that recognition it takes its place among the
claim that the recent re-emergence of music as a subject of sustained 'philosophies of .. .'. So, with this slight detour concluded, let us
philosophical inquiry is the result of what I have called a 'recognition now take stock of what we have so far learned.
history.' I think there is. The kinds of precepts and propositions we tend to call 'philo-
It was natural enough that, when music ceased to be seen as a sophical,' outside the philosopher's study or classroom, tend to have
craft: in the middle of the eighteenth century; and came, somewhat the following three features: they seem, on first reflection, to be
gradually to be sure, to be seen as one of the fine arts, there should vacuous truisms; they seem to be so obvious they tend to remain
be an increased interest shown it on the part of an educated public unstated; on more considered reflection they come to be seen as
that might heretofore have looked down on it as not worthy of seri- casting light on, as explanatory of, the practice or discipline for
ous notice by 'gentlemen of quality.' Indeed, a sign of music's new which they are the (frequently) unspoken foundations.
reputation in 'arts and letters' was the publication, in the last quar- Such precepts, isolated and unsystematic, can occur anywhere,
ter of the eighteenth century, of the first real history of the subject, as, for example, in what we only half-seriously call a 'philosophy of
by the great English musician and scholar Dr Charles Burney baseball.' But where they occur as part of a true 'philosophy of . .. 'is
(1726--1814). where they deal with some practice or discipline that lies at the heart

ro - Philosophy of . .. Philosophy of. . . - n

of our consciousness, of our lives as human beings. And when they piano playing. Furthermore, ifit seems obvious to you, as it does to
do occur there, they form a system of inferences and arguments, me, that you don't have to have a philosophy of piano playing or,
not merely a loose collection of precepts or aphorisms, like 'Hit more generally, a philosophy of the performing arts to know how to
'em where they ain't' or 'The best offense is a good defense.' That play the piano, it should seem obvious to you , as it does to me, that
is why we mean it with full seriousness, not merely half-seriously, you needn't have a philosophy of philosophy to do, to know how to }
when we refer to a philosophy of science, a philosophy of morality, practice, philosophy. To appropriate a distinction made famous by
or, as we have now come to see, a philosophy of music. A philosophy the late English philosopher Gilbert Ryle, being able to do philo-
of music, then , will be a system of precepts and propositions, sophy is a matter of knowing how ... , knowing what philosophy is
perhaps, on first reflection, vacuous truisms not worthy of being is a matter of knowing that . .. One needn't have the latter know-
made explicit, but, on reflection, richly illuminating of the practice ledge to have the former.
they underlie , a practice that as far back as we can trace it has been So have no fear. Though I don't know what philosophy is, do not ~
at the center of our lives and helped to define us as human beings. have a philosophy of philosophy, I still know how to do philosophy. {
And with that having been said, it is high time for me to get on to And the philosophy of music is what I shall now proceed to do. '
my philosophy of music. In any event, as I said at the outset, there is another way to teach
But let no reader be lulled into believing that he or she has really what philosophy is than by giving a philosophy of philosophy. It is
learned, in these brief introductory remarks, the true nature of philo- simply to make the learner acquainted with what philosophy is
sophy. At best I have given the reader some idea of what it looks by presenting him or her with a philosophy of. ... In other words,
like, not what it is. To do the latter would be to undertake a far dif- one can impart to others an idea of what philosophy is by showing
ferent project from the present one, a project I could not myself rather than by telling. What now follows is an introduction to the
undertake. philosophy of music. It is philosophy. What better way to tell you
Indeed, I freely confess that I do not myself know what philosophy what a giraffe is than to show you a giraffe? One giraffe is worth
is. Should the reader, on that account, put this book down and read 1,000 words.

no further? After all, he or she might reason, here is someo'.1-e who

has written a book on the philosophy of music and now admits
he does not know what philosophy is. In other words, he literally
does not know what he is talking about. How can we place any
confidence in what such a person says about the philosophy of
music (or the philosophy of anything else)?
But such a decision to reject outright what follows in my book
would be quite unwarranted by the argument given. The philo-
sophy of anything is a practice. Like all other practices, one need not
have a philosophy of it to know how to do it. To know what philo-
sophy is is to have a philosophy of philosophy, just as to know, in a
philosophical way, what piano playing is is to have a philosophy of

12 - Philosophy of . .. Philosophy of. . . - 13

 customarily render as 'music. ' We quite literally don't know what he
was talking about.
The reader is forewarned, therefore, that what I say here about
Plato's theory of music and the emotions, as well as what I say about
CHAPTER 2 his great student Aristotle (384-322 BC) in the same regard, may
well be completely wide of the mark. Nevertheless, we do know

A Little History what later ages took Plato and Aristotle to be saying, which is what
influenced their accounts of music and the emotions, up to our own
day. And that, after all, is more important for our purposes than what
Plato and Aristotle really may have meant.
Music, in Plato's and Aristotle's time, was mainly vocal melody
with words, accompanied by a stringed instrument such as the lyre.
Whether the accompaniment was 'e.olyphonic,' whether, that is, it
consisted of notes other than those of the melody, seems doubt-
i_ul. In other words, the accompanying instrument or instruments
The oldest and most continuously reiterated precept in the philo- simply played more or less the same notes as the vocal melody. This
sophy of music, sometimes merely amounting to a simple expression is known as 'monody,' or 'monodic' music.
of faith, other times reaching the level of sophisticated theory, is that The music of which I am speaking was constructed on ~
there is a special connection between music and the human emo- 'IDQ.des:...Q =ales, each consisting in a distinct, fixed sequence of
tions, beyond the connection there might be supposed between intervals, giving it a distinct sound quality as well as, the Greeks
emotions and any otheI._.Qf th~Jine ar£ It stretches back into the thought, a distinct ' ethos' or mood: each mode, in other words, w~
mists of time, has its first philosophical embodiment in Eilltu'.s- associated with a different emotion (or range of emotions). (You can
~epublic, and is already present in the m th of Or heus, sin er of get an idea of what a 'mode' is like by playing on the white keys of a
on s, whose music could subdue the savage beasts, and even the piano the notes from D to D, which is the modern version of the
lord ·of the underworld himself. The philosophy of music be ins 'Dorian' mode, or the notes from F to F, the modern version of the
wi lato's cou usic and the emotions. It is there that it is 'L dian.')
logical for us to begin our study. It was Plato's view, as expressed in Book III of the Republic, that ~
A great deal is known about ancient Greek theories of music in melody composed in one mode would arouse in hearers emotions
Plato's time. But little, if indeed anything, really, is known about or states of character appropriate to that mode, melodies composed
what Greek 'music' sounded like. Because we can't listen to ancient ~no~ode emotions or states of chara t pp.r.o_p ·ate to that
Greek ~sic, the way we can, for example, now, even to the music one, and so on. He thought, for example, that there was a mode
of the Middle Ages, it is very difficult to have any confidence that (unnamed) whose melodies could instill coura e and warlike emo-
we know exactly what Plato was saying about what our translators
-
ti_ons in men. Furthermore, he thought this was the result of that

A Little History - 15
 mode's being an imitation or representation of the tones and performance, which they had come to believe, on the authority of
accents, the cries and shouts, apparently, of brave, warlike men. In Aristotle's Poetics, was a sung, musical performance. In the process,
other word£Plato can be taken, and was, by many, to have claimed they invented the art form we know now as 'o era.'
that, in general, ~es have the ower_.!22.rouse emotions in What is of particular interest to the philosopher of music is the
listeners by imitating or representing the manner in which people t.!_i~a1 u:1derpinning of this new artistic ~nterprise. In essence~
express them in thei~peech and ex~ations. )This ~tio-;-:as Vie. what the members of the Camerata and their associates espoused
shall see in a moment, re-emerged in the sixteenth century, and set was a version of Plato's theory, outlined just now. They argued that
in motion a train of speculation concernin t_!2e relation ~f mgsi_c to the power of music to arouse the human emotions lay in the repres-
the emotions that has en_9~red unbroken to the present day. entations, by melody, of the human speaking voice when expressing
Aristotle too endorsed the notion of an intimate relation between the various emotions. Thus the composer, if he wished to arouse
music and the emotions. Indeed, in his Politics, Book VIII, Chapter 5, joy in his listeners, must write a melody representing the tones and
fhe made the intriguing suggestion that music represents not the_ accents of a person expressing joy in her speech, if melancholy, the
physical expression of human emotions bmthe human emQtions tones and accents of melancholy speech, and so on. (It was assumed,
themsel.ws., and that m_en's souls move, emotivel , in sympath with from the start, that the arousal of these emotions was a good thing
these rep~enJa.!.ions ) for music to do.)
How musical sound can imitate or represent emotions, Aristotle, At this point it would perhaps be useful to introduce a bit of
unfortunately, never made clear. And, as the Platonic theory that it terminology. Let us say that the Camerata produced an analysis of
imitates or represents the sounds of human expressive utterances is how music can be expressive of the human e~otions. It was expres-
more easily grasped, and more plausible to boot, it was the theory sive ofsadness in virtue of arousing sadness in listeners, expressive of
that had the greater influence, a1.._enticin (as we shall see) t t e joy in virtue of arousingjoy in listeners, and so on. Throughout this
modern sensibility as.Aristotle's more darin ro osal is (if, indeed, book I shall refer to such theories as 'aro al' theories of musical
we understand it correctly). expressiveness. Further, I shall also describe them as 'dispositiGnal'
To tell the story I have to tell I must now skip nearly 2,000 years, t~es, because, according to them, music 'possesses' emotive
to the close of the sixteenth century This is not because the inter- properties as ' dispositions' to arouse emotions in listeners, the same
vening period is barren of speculation concerning music and the way that opium has the dispositional property of putting people to
emotions. But there is a special continuity to the stor that be ins sleep.
with Plato and Aristotle, and icks u with the revival of their emo- Throughout the history of speculation with regard to musical

- - --
ti e theories of music in the late Renai ce . It is that continuous
story that is most germane to our project and, therefore, most
expressiveness, various mechanisms have been suggested by pro-
ponents of the arousal theory for how music manages to do the
profitably pursued.
-----
In the city o ~ei towards the close of the sixteenth century,
arousing. The members of the Camerata had what I shall call a 's m-
pathy'_mechani2gi.. They believed, that is to say, that, becaus~usic
a group of the nobility, calling itself the Camerata, in collaboration represents the speaking voice of an agent expressing an emotion
with some of the city's most talented poets, composers, and theor- - remember, this was a recipe for how composers should write
eticians, attempted what they took to be the revival of Greek tragic music for characters in a drama!-we, the listeners, are aroused to

16 - A Little History A Little History - 17

that emotion by '!9emifyin ' (in imagination) with that agent and be thought of as arousing the garden-variety emotions. This was
thereby feeling the emotion the agent is represented as express- the publication, in 1649, of The Passions of the Soul, by the great
ing (and which, naturally enough, we assume he or she is feeling mathematician and philosopher Rene Descartes (1596- 1650). In this
as well). I shall call this, simply, the 'sympathy' theory of emotive highly influential work on what we would call today the 'physiolog-
~usal.
ical psychology' of the emotions, Descartes proposed that each of
We can then with our new terminology in place, summarize the what he considered the six basic emotions, or passions, wonder,
I I . r. . love, hatred, desire, joy, and sadness, was directly caused to be ex-
Camerata's theory of musical expressiveness. It is an arousal theory,
and a dispositional theory of musical expressiveness; a sympathy perienced by a particular motion of the so-called vital spirits, esprits
theory of musical arousal:.J animaux in the original French edition. Descartes conceived of the
With the Camerata's theory so described, an interesting point nerves as a athwa of tin i es- essentially a plumbing system
emerges. There really are two projects here: the analysis of what we in miniature- through which the vital spirits, a subtle and volatile
are saying when we describe music in expressive terms- sad, happy, fluid medium, flowed, connecting the brain with the limbs and
and the like-and the analysis of what we are saying when we say sen e bod . This fluid m edium was supposed by Descartes
that we are deeply, emotionally moved by music. The arousal and to have a articular way of configuring itself, each such confi~ra­
dispositional theories tell us t_he former; the s m ath theory~ ti2£..S._a2able of ar~sin on«;_.9r oth~fthe s· b- . m~tions.:...
latter. Now it so happens that in the writings of the Camerata ~p. Thus, for example, a person who perceived a threat to her safety
~ects reduce to the same thll:_g: th~arousal of what I shall call, would have stimulated in her nervous system the configuration of
from now on, the ' arden-variety emotions,' which is to say, the the vital spirits capable of inciting her to fear; and fear is what she
common, ordinary, basic emotions in the human repertory: joy, would experience.
melancholy, anger, fear, love, and a few others of that kind. But such The Cartesian psychology and physiology of the emotions were
a conflation of the two projects is not the only way to proceed. As we quickly adopted by many music theorists, who speculated that till_
shall see later, not only is it not necessary to think that, when we say motion o£musical sound mi ht directly excite the vitals irits, there-
music is expressive of the garden-variety emotions, and when we say by using the listener's emoti.i n . Thus, it was thought that, if a
it is deeply moving, we are saying the same thing: it is not advisable c9 mposer wished, say, to write sad music, what he had to do was to
either. In fact , the best way to represent what is happening is to pro- write ~ic whose general configuration resembled the configura-
vide quite a different explanation for how music is expressive of the tion of the vita pirits_appropriate to the arousal of that emotion.
garden-variety emotions, and f~ how it can (at times) be a deeply By this means music could, it was thought, be expressive of all the
movin experience to listen to it. basic emotions. All the composer needed to know was what the
Fo; quite ; long time arousal theories of musical expressiveness )?asic motions of the vital spirits were, appropriate to the basic emo-
and of music's capacity to move us emotionally prevailed; and the tions, as explained io Descar:tes' , and write music to match
sympathy theory was frequently appealed to as the mechanism those motions. This theory came to be known as the 'doctrine of the
for the arousal. But in the middle of the seventeenth century there affe~i~ns,' Affektenlehre, in Germany, where it was m~onspic-;
was an important development that at least provided an alternative ous, and was assiduously adhered to, in compositional practice, by
to the sympathy theory as an explanation for how music could many of the most famous composers who flourished between 1675

18 - A Little History A Little History - 19

and 1750, including Georg Frideric Handel (1685-1759) and Johann points the theory of musical expressiveness in a new and fruitful
Sebastian Bach (1685- 1750). direction.
Of course no one today believes in Descartes's vital spirits or the For reasons that are unnecessary to go into here, Schopenhauer
psychology based on them. But theories that ascribe to music power thought of the universe-ultimate reality, if you like- on the model
over the physiological mechanisms of the human body that are sup- of a striving, cosmic human will. Music, he thought, was pre-
posed to be directly responsible for the arousal of the emotions still eminent among the fine arts because it reflected or represented
crop up, and have been around ever since Descartes's pioneering this cosmic will more directly than any of the others could do.
venture into the physiology and psychology of the emotions. Thus, Indeed, he sometimes called music a 'direct copy' of the will.
we can put the 'physiological' theory of how music might arouse This conclusion was of moment for the philosophy of music,
the garden-variety emotions alongside the sympathy theory, as a first, because Schopenhauer elevated music from the rather lowly
perennial possibility. status it occupied in the eyes of the eighteenth-century philosophers
The arousal, dispositional theory of musical expressiveness, joined to the status of the fine art above all others. Indeed, ~s
with the arousal, dispositional theory of how music moves us emo- fil}Ointed the Romantic ar.t 1ZQr excellence. ~ the nineteenth century
tionally, remained in place from the time of the Camerata to the was the ~omantic cen!}l.J:Y. - - ·~
first years of the nineteenth century: a period of over 200 years. Furthermore, Schopenhauer broke the stranglehold that the
Sometimes the sympathy theory, sometimes the physiological arousal theory had had on the phenomenon of musical expressive-
theory, in its more or less Cartesian form, was the driving engine. ness for over two centuries. For, in making music a representation of
But the general outline, whether sympathy or physiology was the will, Schopenhauer suggested at the same time that it rni~ht be
appealed to, remained constant. a representation of the human emotions as well. The emotions
The first major break with this 200-year stasis was, all in all, a music is expressive of were moved, at a str~ls.e,.[iom the listener and
momentous occurrence in the philosophy of music: the publica- into the music, the place where most contemporary philosophers
tion, in 1819, of The World as Will and Idea , the major work of the think they belongj if that move was what Aristotle had in mind, in
influential German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860). his elusive remarks in the Politics, it was finally, at long last, taken up
Schopenhauer's magnum opus was, essentially, a theory of everything, again.)
in the grand old manner of philosophical speculation no longer rAs well, Schopenhauer explicitly sc;wrated..tbe...f.act of4 xru;s;s-
thought productive or respectable. But that his cosmic pretensions siveness from music's power emotionally to move the listener. }n
are not now taken very seriously does not mean he did not have other words, Schopenhauer was saying that music is expressive of
enlightening things to say on many of the particular topics that the emotions in virtue of its re.J?resentational 12ower. but not ~­
fell under his gaze. In particular, his account of music, and its place tionally moving~ ~E~i:s~g whatever emotion or emotioIJ.Li!
in the system of Ehe fine arts, has been sympathetically received represented. This conclusion has been welcome to some. including
by many philosophers and musical theorists of a philosophical bent. myself, but not, as we sh~ll s.ee ro orheC.5 ,
Shorn of its cumbersome metaphysical underpinning, Schopen- All in all, then, Schopenhauer instituted a revolution in our philo-
hauer's philosophy of music makes a good deal of sense: at least, it S£Phical thinking about music in general, and about the relation of

20 - A Little History A Little History - 21

music to the emotions in particular. He, so to speak, put pure instru- intention, because his argument for the negative thesis is that music
mental music on the philosophical map, lifting it from the level of as an art cannot arouse or represent the garden-variety emotions;
a 'pleasant' art to a deeply significant one. And he pointed the and if it cannot then it follows trivially that it cannot be any pur-
theory of musical expressiveness in what seems to most of us to be pose of music, as an art, to arouse or represent the garden-variety
the right direction, _putting the emotion music is ~arQlQ_~e expres- emotions.
sive of into the music, as perceived property of it. To be sure, he Why, then, did Hanslick express the negative thesis in the way
envisioned only one way to do this: to think of expressive properties_ that he did, as denying that the sole or primary artistic purpose of
as re resentational properties. Contemporary philosophical ana- music is to arouse or represent the garden-variety emotions? Simply
lysis has discerned another, more plausible way. But that remains for because these were the theses of his predecessors, and the only inter-
the next chapter to reveal. esting theses. Someone who maintains that it is a not very important,
Schopenhauer's revolution in the theory of the musical emotions or even trivial office of music , as an art, to arouse or represent the
was one of two revolutions the nineteenth century produced in .that garden-variery emotions is maintaining something t~t is really
regard. The second came in~in the form fa little book b the pot worth the !1;,QY,ple rr;>~e, because it is not really worth the
Viennese musician and music £!!ic Eduard Hanslick (1825-1904). trouble to entertain. In any case, since Hanslick's strategy, in the
It was first translated into English under the title The Beautiful in negative thesis, was to argue that music cannot su;Quse~~esent.
Music, and, more recently, On the Musically Beautiful. It seems to me the garden-variety emotions, in any artistically significant way, there
that &rrer, more idiomatic renderiQg than either of thes · On was hardl need for him to point QUt that it is imma~~rial wh;t·h ~
Musical B~u~,3nd so I.§Jl;;ill re(er to it on these <!geS. the theory against which the strategy is deployed is that music's sole
In On Musical Beauty Hanslick defended two theses: one he artistic function is to arouse or represent these emotions, whether it
called 'ne gtiy_e,' the other ' ositiy_e .' The positive thesis will occupr_ is music's primary artistic function, or whether it is one of music's
us later on. Th~ ati~e on is rel<';vant ow. minor artistic functions . If the strategy is good, it is good against any
- Hanslick's negative thesis was that it is not the sole Qf pxll:nar..¥- degree of involvement of music with the arousal or representation
purpose of music, as an art, either to arouse or to represent what of the garden-variety emotions. What music cannot do at all, it can-
I have been calling the garden-variety emotions. His argument for not do even a little bit.
this thesis was simple and direct. Music, as an art, cannot either But there is a second reason why commentators on Hanslick's
arouse or represent the garden-variety emotions. Therefore, it can- negative thesis have thought that he was not ruling out, in the nega-
not be the sole or primary purpose of music, as an art, either to tive thesis, at least some intimate involvement of music with the
arouse or to represent the garden-variety emotions. emotions. For having taken as his first task, in On Musical Beauty, the
Hanslick's negative thesis has been continually misinterpreted by proof that music cannot arouse the garden-variety emotions, he
commentators because of the way in which it was stated. Since his seems to turn an about face and claim, later on. that it can and often
thesis is that arousing or representing the garden-variety emotions does.
cannot be the sole or primary artistic purpose of music, it would However, to the careful reader, Hanslick is reasonably clear about
seem that Hanslick is allowing the possibility that it is at least a w at he is saying in these two distinct places and reasonably clear
secondary or minor purpose. But, clearly, that cannot have been his about why they are consistent with one another. At the outset

22 - A Little History
A Little History - 23
Hanslick claims that music cannot, in any artistically relevant way, music without text or dramatic setting: what Hanslick's century
arouse the garden-variety emotions. When he later returns to the began to call 'absolute music ,' and what I sometimes call 'music
question of emotive arousal, he points out the obvious fact that alone.'
music can, of course, arouse the garden-variety emotions in art- Most of the music in the world is now, and always has been, music
istically irrelevant ways. It can do this in two ways, both equally sung to words. As an art form in its own right, absolute music did
irrelevant to artistic function. not become a subject of philosophical inquiry until late in the
If a person is emotionally 'overwrought,' or in some way emo- eighteenth century. The issue Hanslick is dealing with then, as he
tionally 'unstable' or 'abnormal,' a musical work might well send makes very clear, is whether pure instrumental music can relevantly
him into paroxysms of rage , or depths of despair, as might a dande- arouse or represent the garden-variety emotions. Of course, when a
lion or a door knob. But this tells us nothing about what any of these text or dramatic setting is given to music for the music to accom-
things are for or what their nature is. That music, like anything else, pany, music's capability in these regards is altered radically. Music
can have emotional effects on people with temporary or permanent with words and musical drama are subjects of great importance,
emotional 'problems' or peculiarities is irrelevant to the artistic nature needless to say, to the philosophy of music. They will be discussed at
or purpose of music, and of no concern to the philosopher of art. the appropriate time. Until then, what we are considering is abso-
More importantly, because easily mistaken for genuine aesthetic lute music and that alone.
effect, music may, according to Hanslick, arouse the garden-variety Against the notion that music alone can relevantly arouse the
emotions in listeners who have 'personal associations' with it. Thus, garden-variety emotions, Hanslick presents an argument remark-
ifI first heard Beethoven's Fifth Symphony during a particularly sad able both for its cogency and for its foresight. It is an argument that
period of my life and you first heard it in a particularly happy period many accept, including myself. Furthermore, it makes use of an
of yours, it might, on subsequent hearings, remind you of happy analysis of how the garden-variety emotions are aroused in ordin-
events, me of sad ones, thus, by 'association,' making you happy and ary life that did not gain currency until more than mo years after
me sad. But such accidental personal associations are irrelevant to Hanslick proposed it in On Musical Beauty.
the content of Beethoven's work, and to our artistic appreciation The analysis of which I speak, known today as the 'cognitive
of it. theory of the emotions,' is simply that, for a garden-variety emotion,
The argument for the negative thesis, as we have seen, is that let us say fear, to be aroused , the following must happen. The person
music is incapable of arousing or representing the garden-variety feeling fear must, in the standard case, have some belief, or set of
emotions in any artistically relevant way. But what is the basis for the beliefs, appropriate to the experiencing of that emotion: must, in
claim that music cannot relevantly do this? Hanslick's answer is other words, have a belief or set of beliefs that can reasonably be
twofold. thought to cause fear in a person. (She believes, for example, that she
But before we get to that twofold answer, it is important to is being threatened by a dangerous lunatic. ) The fear must have an
remark upon another ofHanslick's major points, always to be borne object: that is to say, the person must be afraid ofsomething or other.
in mind whenever there is a discussion of musical aesthetics, par- (In this case, the person is afraid ofwhat she takes to be a dangerous
ticularly one in which music and the emotions is the subject. It is lunatic: the dangerous lunatic is the object of her fear. ) And there
simply that what we are concerned with here is pure instrumental usually is, also, although not ne~arily, a particular feeling- the
•I
'/ A Little History - 25
24 - A Little History . .....d .. \

LICRAFW
feeling of fear in one of its many forms-that the fearful person is In any case, the argument from disagreement seems to have
experiencing. been accepted without question by generations of music theorists
Hanslick gives an analysis of emotive arousal very like the one and philosophers, pretty much putting an end, for nearly rno years,
sketche<;l above and then goes on to argue that it is not within the to any serious philosophical reflection on the possibilities of under-
capabilities of music, absolute music, to provide the materials of standing music as an expressive medium, at least as straightfor-
arousal as so understood. What relevant beliefs could the music wardly expressive of the garden-variety emotions. The lone but
impart that would arouse fear or joy or sadness in me? And what important departure from this skeptical orthodoxy- indeed the
would be the obj ects of these emotions? Seen in this light, Hanslick only philosophically powerful foray into musical aesthetics between
insisted, the notion that music can relevantly arouse the garden- Hanslick and almost the middle of the twentieth century-is
variety emotions becomes ludicrous: a palpable absurdity. It is hard Edmund Gurney's The Power of Sound (1880). Gurney (1847- 88) did,
not to agree. (Whether, of course, music with words or a dramatic indeed, think that music could on occasion be expressive of the
setting can relevantly arouse the garden-variety emotions is quite garden-variety emotions; and he was also careful to distinguish this
another matter, and will be discussed in the appropriate place. ) phenomenon from that of music's having power to move listeners
Against the notion that music can relevantly represent the deeply (which he also affirmed). However, he placed little import-
garden-variety emotions, Hanslick relies principally on what might ance upon the fact that music could som etimes be expressive of
be called the 'argument from disagreement'-a familiar skeptical the garden-variety emotions, which is why he is usually thought of
strategy in the history of philosophy. The claim is simply that lis- as being the 'English Hanslick' : a musical 'purist' completely in
teners are in complete disagreement in any given case about what Hanslick's mould. He is far more than that, and we shall return to
emotive term or description correctly characterizes the music. him later, at a more appropriate time.
There is, Hanslick thinks, complete disarray. One listener hears one A more or less barren sixty years in the philosophy of music, at
emotion, another listener another, a third listener no emotion at all, least in the English-speaking world, separates Gurney's great work
and so on. But, Hanslick asks, can we believe music is able to repres- and what amounts to the opening, but somewhat premature, event
ent the garden-variety emotions if it elicits no agreement from in a veritable Renaissance of the subj ect, in America and Britain,
listeners about what emotion, if any, is represented? The answer he which continues as I write. It was in 1942 that Susanne K. Langer
expects and gives is 'No.' (1895-1985) published Philosophy in a New Key, a work that was to
This argument of Hanslick's- the skeptical argument from dis- have a profound influence on musical thinking, and that reminded
agreement-has had a long-lasting and powerful effect on future philosophers of art that music was sorely in need of their attenti0n.
speculation. It is an argument, if cogent, against the claim not only ! ~articular, Langer revived the question of music's relation to the
that music can relevantly represent the garden-variety emotions but
that it can arouse them or in any other way systematically embody
..
emotions ..
It is not as if Philosophy in a New Key, despite its 'musical' title , is a
them. It is somewhat puzzling that Hanslick failed to point this out: book on the philosophy of music; indeed only one of its chapters,
failed, that is, to point out that his argument from disagreement, if 'On Significance in Music,' is a direct contribution to the subject. But
good, was fatal not only to the representation theory of musical what Langer had to say, there, about where the significance of music
expressiveness but to the arousal theory as well. lies, which, she thought, is in its potency as an emotive symbol,

26 - A Little History A Little History - 27

struck a responsive chord, after nearly 100 years of skepticism, emotions, which they saw as, at best, a sop to children and the laity,
particularly among those music theorists and philosophers who and, at worst, simply nonsense, since Hanslickhad 'shown' through
were beginning themselves, perhaps, to grow skeptical ofHanslick's the argument from disagreement that there was no objective
emotive skepticism, and were looking for a way out. validity in such descriptions. Second, however, it, as well , s~pported
Langer had done her homework. She had read her Schopenhauer their equally strong feeling that, Hanslick's critique to the contrary
and her Hanslick and a good deal more in the history of music aes- notwithstanding, music alone , absolute music , possessed some-
thetics in the eighteenth century. She accepted as givens something thing correctly described as 'meaning' or 'significance,' and that this
like Schopenhauer's idea that music was a representation or iconic 'meaning' or 'significance' must have something to do with the
symbol of the emotions, as well as the validity of at least part of human emotions. In short, Langer's account allowed them to think
Hanlick's skepticism. But how could both be true? That was her that it was silly to call music sad or happy but quite all right to say
problem. that there was emotion in it for all of that.
The answer that emerged from Philosophy in a New Key was that But when the philosoprucal community took the measure of
music is not an iconic symbol or representation of the individual what Langer had said about the emotive significance of music, it
garden-variety emotions: it is not, in other words, as if this piece of was m ore reluctant than the musicians in its acquiescence. To be
music were a symbol or representation of sadness, that one of joy, sure, she was seen to have pointed philosophy of music in the right
the other of anger or fear. In that respect Hanslick was right. Rather, direction by putting emotion in the music, as Schopenhauer had
she thought, music is iconically symbolic of, 'isomorphic' with, as done. Philosophers were , however, beginning to be suspicious of
she sometimes put it, the emotive life in general. She adduced, to Hanslick's unexamined skepticism. There were at least some prim-
illustrate her point, the bon mot of the American psychologist Carroll itive psychological data to show that, as a matter of fact, there is sub-
C. Pratt, to the effect that music sounds the way emotions feel- the stantial agreement about what garden-variety emotions passages of
emotive thesis of his highly original study in aesthetic psychology, music are expressive of; and plenty of common-sense considerations
The Meaning ofMusic (1931). that pointed in that direction. People just do, pace Hanslick, gener-
Thus Langer could have it both ways. With Schopenhauer she ally agree about whether a passage of music is sad or happy or angry,
could hold that emotion (albeit singular) was in the music, not the lis- and so on. (If you don't believe me , just try out some simple ex-
tener, while more or less accepting Hanslick's skeptical conclusion amples on your friends. ) And composers agree what kind of music
that music cannot represent, and certainly cannot arouse, the indi- is appropriate for setting sad words, what kind appropriate for
vidual, garden-variety emotions. · hat it can do, she claimed, is to happy words, what kind for angry words. As a result, it no longer
represent or symbolize the emotive ebb and flow as a whole, by seemed an advantage ofLanger's position that it eschewed descrip-
being 'isomorphic' with it j CouJd this have been som ething similar tions of music in specific emotive terms, in terms, that is, of the
to what Aristotle meant by that enigmatic proposal in the Politics garden-variety emotions, and claimed, somewhat mysteriously, so
that music 'imitates' the emotions?) it seemed to some, that music wa bolic o ti.v~life.,:in
What appealed to many in the musical world about Langer's ~hat could that mean?)
account of music was, first, that it supported their feeling of aversion Furthermore, there had been trouble , right from the start, with
to descriptions of music in terms of the ordinary, garden-variety the logic ofLanger's notion that music might be a '. symbol,' albeit an

28 - A Little History A Little History - 29

'iconic' symbol, a 'picture' symbol, if you will, of the emotive life.
For even iconic, 'look-like' symbols must ' mean' by convention. lfl
hang a plaster fish in front of my shop, it is taken for a fish market,
not an aquarium; and the sign by the side of the road with an 'S' on
it signifies not 'snakes crossing' but ' curves ahead' -both by 'mean- CHAPTER 3
ing convention.'lsut there is no meaning convention for music's
iconically symbolizing the emotive life, as Langer would have it,
rather than any of the other things it might be isomorphic with or
'sound likej So, as a claim about music's symbolic function , Langer's
Emotions in the Music
theory won't stand up.
Finally, the placing of the emotion or emotions 'in' the music, as
representation or iconic symbol, does not seem to capture how we
really experience the emotions in music. Most people would say, l
think, that, when they hear, for instance, sadness in a musical theme
or passage, they don't hear it the way they see the dog in a dog-
picture but, rather, the way they see the redness in an apple: not, in
There has been a growing consensus among philosophers of music
other words, as a representational but as a simple perceptual quality.
that, contrary to the skeptical claims of Hanslick, it makes perfect
Langer, following Schopenhauer, prepared the way for contem-
sense to describe music in expressive terms, and that, again contrary
porary philosophical analysis of the musical emotions by taking
to Hanslick's skeptical claims, there is more or less general agree-
the emotion out of the listener and putting it where it belongs, in
ment, among qualified listeners, as to what the music is expressive
the music. But, like Schopenhauer, she saw only one possible way
of, in any given instance, if, that is, it is expressive of anything (which
that the emotion could be in the music: as representation or iconic
need not necessarily be the case). More specifically, Eh~reJ:ias-b.e.en a
symbol. Contemporary analysis, however, now envisions a second
growing consensus that music can be, and often is_, expressive of the
way, closer to the way we seem to experience the emotions in music,
garden-variety emotions, such as sorrow, joy, fe~r, hope, and a few -J. .
which is to say, a~perceEtual properties like colors or tastes '. To this,
other basic emotions like these. ·7 ~ ; I.... ., /
it seems to me, successful new approach to the problem of the /
As well , the consensus generally is that, when we say a passage of / '" ~ J
musical emotions we must now turn our attention.
music is sorrowful, or fearful , or the like, we are not describing a dis- ff'
position of the music to arouse such an emotion in us, but ascribin
such an emotion, as a perceived property, to the music itself. This
way in which the musical emotions are perceived, as, rather, in the
music, than in us, with the music as their cause, was well captured
by the late American philosopher 0. K. Bouwsma, when he quipped
that the emotion is more like the redness to the apple than like the
burp to the cider.

30 - A Little History
 But this view, though initially appealing, is not without its prob- Such a general argument was advanced by the remarkable Amer-
lems, the most discussed of which is how the emotion can b~ in the ican philosopher Charles Hartshorne in his highly original book The
music. We all understand how an emotion can be 'in' something as a Philosophy and Psychology of Sensation (1934) , many years before the
-;-disposition.' Sad news is news that makes people sad: the sadness is problem emerged decisively for contemporary philosophy of music.
in the news merely in the sense of a tendency of such news to sadden Hartshorne adduced the common phenomenon of the emotive
people. There is no 'metaphysical' problem there: that is, no pro- tone of colors toJllustrate the point that emotions can b~.2-!1.Qf:.our
blem about the nature of the property we are ascribing to the news. per~eptual field in perfectly ordinary circumstances well known to

Likewise, we all understand quite well what we are saying when us all. Thus, he pointed out, yellow is a ' cheerful' color, not because
we assert that a person is sad: the sadness is a conscious state of that it makes us cheerful but because its cheerfulness just is a part of its
person; that feeling of depression and lassitude one experiences perceived quality, inseparable from its yellowness. That's just how
~pon losing a loved one or suffering a great disappointment. Again , we perceive yellow. In the same vein, he instanced other colors, ;s
there is no 'metaphysical' problem about how a person can possess well as sounds, and other visual aspects of our world. In so doing,
the 'property' of sadness; what its mode of existence is. Sadness is a Hartshorne drew our attention to the fact that music is not alone in
conscious state and persons are capable ofhaving conscious states. possessing for us emotions as perceived qualities of our sensible
I But music is not capable of being in conscious states (needless to experience. The phenomenon is ubiquitous to our perceptual world.
say), so it can't possess sadness in that way.p nd. since it is the con- It should make us less uncomfortable, then, with the phenomenon
sensus that it doesn't possess the thing as a disposition to make us in music if we realize that it is not merely a musical phenomenon but
sad, or, as we have seen, as a representational property, that is, as a a phenomenon of human perceptual experience in general.
representation of sadness, how exactly does it- the music- possess Nevertheless, the skeptical may reply, the pr.o blem of how emo-
tions can be possessed by music, as perceptual qualities, has hardly
I
the sadness? It is all very well to say, with Bouwsma, that it is as I
the redness to the apple rather than the burp to the cider. However, been solved by discovering th at objects other than music possess them.
that does not really answer our question. For, although we have a Indeed, it could be argued that the problem has actually been ex-
pretty good idea of how redness 'inheres' in apples and other red acerbated. For now we have the problem not only for music, but for
things, what we don't Rave is a pretty good idea of(~.ow t~e emotions the other objects as well. If it is mysterious how music can possess
'inhere' 'in the mu51 Indeed, some people think we don't have any emotive qualities, it is equally ;nys terious~ for example, how colors
/ can possess them. First we had one problem; now we have two.
idea at all.
One of the traditional ways philosophers have of dealing with Hartshorne's answer to how emotive properties constitute part
such cases is to try to make an analogy between the problematic of the perceptual world of insentient matter is unlikely to appeal
case and an unproblematic one that it relevantly resembles. In the to the contemporary analytic mind. Indeed, his philosophy is a kind
present instance, what might make us less uncomfortabl with the of 'panpsychism': the view that so-called 'insentient' m atter has
notion of emotions 'inhering' in music as percep~al- properties itself at least a degree of sentience. In other words, Hartshorne does
would be to discover cases ill our ordinary experience where we not explain how insentient matter can come to possess emotive
commonly accept as a matter of course the notion of perceptual properties, but, rather, blurs the distinction between sentient and
emotive properties b elonging to non-sentient' objects.' insentient; which is to say, to a degree, it's sentience all the way down.

32 - Emotions in the Music Emotions in the Music - 33

 l

As I say, few will be willing to take such a drastic step with other perceived quality or qualities that it has beyond the yellowness
Hartshorne, although, I hasten to add, he is not some wild-eyed (which is simply what it is ).
fanatic, in touch with astral forces, but a cool-headed philosopher But when we go from the cheerfulness of the color yellow to the
of the first rank whose works abound in useful and penetrating cheerfulness of a musical passage, the situation is radically altered.
insights. So for those of us who are not attracted to anything When I say that a passage of music is._Gh.eerful or melanchol , I can
as beyond human experience as what Hartshorne offers, a more defend my c aim y pointing t<;> the features1of the music in virtueOf
mundane answer must be sought for the question of how music can which the mu~ cheerful r ancholy _0r whatever). I can say.,:
'Notice the rapid, ski~-t p , the bright major tc:nalities the
possess perceptual emotive properties. It is a comfort, indeed, to
know that music shares this expressive aspect with such everyday
---- /' ~
generally loud level of soun , the leaping, galloping le~That's
objects as simple colors, and helps to assure us that there is noth- what makes 1t so cheerful. ' Or: 'Notice the slow, dragging tempo,
ing bizarre or seemingly outside the realm of the human to call a the dark minor toi?a'litr;, the...subdued uiet dynamics, the falter-
passage of music mournful or jolly or anguished. However, that ing, drooping themes. That's what makes it so mournful.' In this
does not replace the need for an explanation of how music can sense, the cheerfulness, mournfulness, and other emotive qualities
possess such emotions as perceived properties. of music are 'complex' qualities, not simple ones like the cheerful-
One thing to notice, straightaway, about the comparison of the ness of the color yellow. They are also the kinds of quality that are
cheerfulness of a musical passage and, say, the cheerfulness of the sometimes called 'emergent,' because they perceptually 'emerge'
color yellow is that the cheerfulness of yellow, as yellow itself, is a from the other qualities that make them up. The cheerfulness of the
'simple' property whereas the cheerfulness of music is a 'complex' music is a new quality, so to speak, that is produced by the combined
one. What this means is that, if I say, 'This kerchief is yellow,' and ~~the bright major tonality, the-rapid-skipping·te.JJ2£Q,..the- ua
you say, 'No, it's orange,' there is nothing else I can point to in the dynamics, the leaping, galloping themes.
kerchief to show or convince you that the kerchief really is yellow Calling the emotive qualities of music' mp lex' qualities emphas-
and not orange. I cannot respond to your denial by saying some- izes the fact that a passage of music is cheerfu , or melancholy, or
thing like : 'But don't you see it is such-and-such and so-and-so, so it whatever in virtue of other musical features that make it so. (calling
must be yellow. ' This, of course, does not mean that there is no way I them 'emergent' qualities emphasizes the fact that they are per-
can try to show you that the kerchief is yellow, not orange. The ceived as distinct qualities in their own right, separate from the qual-
usual procedure would be for us to view it in sunlight rather than ities that may 'produce' them.
artificial light, or make sure one of us is not sight-impaired in some t the emotive qualities of music a~"!!!1Plex qualities shou1~ ndt -t

way, and so on. ~annot do, because yellow is a simple pro- be th_ought_i:o imply that when someone is ~aring, say, the~~­
perty, is to point to something else in the kerchief and say: 'It's yellow choly quality of a musical passage, he OJ she is necessarily a~ of
~ iS'l1ot a complex proper~ so there is no the other qi:_alities productive 1of the melancholy. l\_person may be
~t' topomtti. - hearing the melancholic quality of the music without being aware
The same seems to be true of the cheerfulness of yellow. Like the that the music is melancholy in virtue ofits slow, halting tempo, sub-
yellowness itself, it is a simple quality. The cheerfulness just is a qual- dued dynamics, dark minor tonalities, faltering, drooping themes.
ity of the yellowness. Yellowness is not cheerful in virtue of some He or she may not even know that it is those kinds of musical

34 - Emotions in the Music Emotions in the Music - 35

 --
features that are generally responsible for making music melancholy.
But if someone fails to hear the melancholy in the music, he or she
\ been tempted by it myself. This approach begins with the thought
that sad music being in slow, halting tempo, subdued in dynamics,
can, often, be helped to hear it by having attention drawn to those with drooping, faltering melodies, and sad people walking in slow
features: 'Listen to its slow, halting tempo, those dark minor tonal- halting gate, with drooping bodies, speaking in subdued halting
ities, the subdued dynamics, the faltering, drooping themes. Now \voice, cannot be altogether coincidental. Nor can it be altogether
don't you hear the melancholy?' Frequently the answer will be 'yes.' coincidental that cheerful musical works and cheerful people move
Among those who think that the garden-variety emotions belong rapidly, speak loudly, and even leap about, melodically in the music,
to music as perceptual, heard qualities, there is little dissension from bodily in people In other words, there seems to be a direct analogy
the belief that these qualities are complex, emergent qualities in the between how p ople look ra nd :sound when they express th~ gard~n-
sense explained just now. Furthermore, there is general agr~~me11L
"-- ~ -
variety emotions (at least some of them) and how music sounds or is
about ,what features of music) are associated with what emotive described when it is perceived as expressive of those same emotions.
qualiti~s. Indeed, this is not just a 'theoretical' agreement among The intuition is that there must be some~ explanation lurking
philosophers ut a 'practical' agreeme nt among compo~- and in this analogy: fuat the v:jwe customarily expr~s the garden-
orilinary listeners as well. We know the latter because for well over variety emotions\ must somehow exp am why we hear those emo-
300 years composers have consistently utilized just those musical tions in the -music.J
features to set melancholy and cheerful and fearful texts that we, as In my 1980 book The Corded Shell, later reprinted, with major addi-
listeners, perceive to be the features responsible for the melancholy, tions, as Sound Sentiment, I attempted to give an account of musical
cheerful, fearful emotive qualities we hear in textless music, as well expressiveness based, in large part, on the analogy between musical
as the features that make the music appropriate to the emotive tone expressiveness and human expression. To facilitate that project I sub-
of the texts the composers set. This is not a philoso her's i ~earn stituted for Hartshorne' s example of the cheerfulness of yellow my
but a basic fact of musical listening, and of the musical craft in the own example of a St Bernard's sad face.
West for centunes. The St Bernard's face is not expressing sadness. The face of the St
- However, because there is general agreement that this piece of Bernard is sad even when the creature is happy, it being at the other
music is melancholy in virtue of its dark, minor tonalities, subdued end that she expresses her emotions. The face, rather, is expressive of
dynamics, slow, halting tempo, drooping, halting melody, that piece sadness: the sadness is a quality of the face as the cheerfulness is a
cheerful in virtue of its light, major harmonies, loud dynamics, fast, quality of the yellow color. But, unlike the color yellow, the face of
skipping tempo, leaping, galloping melodies, does not solve the the St Bernard is a complex perceptual object and, hence, makes a far
problem ofhow or why the music is in the first ase melancholy, and better analogue to the expressive musical object, which is also a com-
in the second cheerful. Why, after all, don't I just hear the dark, plex one. What does the analogy have to teach us?
minor harmonies, the subdued dynamics, the slow, halting tempo, It seems fairly clear that the sadness of the St Bernard's face is
the drooping, halting melodies? Why do I also hear the melancholy? there in virtue of our seeing it as a kind of caricature-but a recog-
This is the problem. nizable resemblance-of the human visage when expressing sad-
The most tempting approach to the problem of how emotions ness. Furthermore, we can point to individual aspects of the canine
get 'into' the music is one that I am intimately familiar with, as I have face-the sad eyes, the wrinkled brow, the drooping mouth and

36 - Emotions in the Music Emotions in the Music - 37

 ears, the dewlap- that are exaggerated reflections of just such and the sounds of human expression. Let us take , for example, music
sadness-expressing features of a human face. The theory of musical that is heard as melancholy and music that is heard as cheerful.
expressiveness now under discussion is that expressive music is to Certainly this much can be said. Melancholy music and melan-
human expressive features , overall, as the St Bernard's face is to the choly speech and utterance have some obvious sound qualities in
'expressing' human countenance. Can this claim be substantiated? common. Melancholy people tend to express themselves in soft,
We might usefully distinguish am ong the following three kinds of subdued tones of voice· and melancholy music tends to be soft and
expressive features of music that the theory under discussion must subdued. Melancholy people tend to speak slowly and haltingly; and
deal with. First there are the features of music that might be claimed melancholy music tends to be in slow tempi and halting rhythm.
to 'sound lik~,'~ds human beings make in expressing their Melancholy people's voices tend to 'sink,' and tend to remain in
I
'
.. •"'1) emoti°';;;s: the most ~vious being speech . Seco d, th ere are the the low vocal register; and melancholy music too exhibits the same
~.~ \h. characteristics.
features of music that are said to resemble, in their sound, visible
6.,\'°~· ..
aspects of human expression behavior: for example, human gesture In contrast, cheerful people express themselves in bright, loud,
and bodily movem ent. Thi\d, there are certain musical features, sometimes even raucous-certainly not subdued-tones; and
notably the major, minor, aild diminished chords (to be explained in cheerful music tends to be bright, loud, and in the high register.
a moment), that have, for m ost people, the emotive tones of cheer- Cheerful people are not slow or halting in speech and utterance but
fulness, melancholy, and anguish, respectively, but that, because bright and sprightly; and cheerful music, likewise, is quick and
they are, like yellow and its cheerfulness, simple perceptual u alit- sprightly. Cheerful people's voices rise energetically into the high
ies do not seem to resemble either the sound of human expression , register; and so too do the melodies of cheerful music.
or its visible aspect. T he chords by themselves, in other words, do In all of this particular attention should be paid to melody. For
I'
not have a linear (but only a vertical) structure, and so do not seem there is no aspect of Western music that is more amenable to ana- \
to be able to b e construed as resembling human expression beha- logy with the rise and fall in pitch of the human speaking voice
vior, which does exhibit complex structure: there is no structure in the than the rise and fall in pitch of music's melodic line. Furthermore,
chords to resemble the structure of human utterance and behavior. melody is that aspect of music that, historically, has been singled out
The resemblance of the sounds of music to the sounds of human most freque ntly as the primary expressive aspect. This perceived )
beings expressing their emotions is som ething that, as we have seen, analogy between melody and speech is a leitmotif in writings about
has been claimed ever since antiquity, and was the motivating force music's exp.ressiveness from Plato to the Camerata to the eighteenth-
behind the endeavors of the Florentine Camerata, in the sixteenth century philosophers to the present day. The cheerful melodic line,
century, to revive, as they saw it, ancient sung drama. But whereas like the cheerful speaking voice, is high , loud, fast, 'running' and
Plato and the Camerata utilized the supposed resemblance to explain 'leaping.' The anguished melody, like the anguished speaking voice,
how, they thought, music can arouse the emotions, the present pro- shrieks and cries, leaps in dissonant intervals, and proceeds in 'jerks,'
ject is to utilize it to explain how music can embody them as heard w ith irregular pauses.
qualities. But b eyond the phenomenon of music's 'sounding like' the vocal
The first question for such a theory would appear to be wheth expressions of melancholy or cheerful people, many listeners per-
there really is a perceivedresemblance between the sounds of music ceive an analogy between the heard properties of music and visible

38 - Emotions in the Music Emotions in the Music - 39

human behavior as well. Music is customarily described in terms expressive-making features of the music, which we may frequently
very similar to those we use to describe the motion of the human be, we do not perceive them as represen tations of anything.
body under the influence of such emotions as melancholy and Furthermore, there must be some exp! nation produced, in
cheerfulness. Thus a musical phrase may leap joyously, or droop, or defense of the contour theory, for why it is the similarity in structure
falter, like a person in motion. To put it more generally, music is between music and expressi'l!!:,!ehavior that plays so important a role
customarily described in terms of motion; and so the same descrip- in the listening experience. After all, the contour of music is pro-
tions we use to characterize it are frequently the ones we use to bably similar in structure to inanimate sounds and natural objects,
describe the visible motions of the human body in the expression of as well as to human expression behavior. What's so special about
the garden-variety emotions. expression behavior that it should be singled out for mention above
I called this theory of musical expressiveness, in The Corded Shell, those other things?
the ~ur t~eoryj because, to put it somewhat figuratively, the Finally, does the contour theory do any better a job of capturing
'contour' of music, its sonic ' shape,' bears a structural analogy to the our experience of music's expressive qualities than a representa-
heard and seen manifestations of human emotive expression. One tional theory would do? Can it capture the way we experience the
thing to be noticed straightaway about the contour theory is that it emotions in music, namely, as directly perceived perceptual qualities?
is going to have trouble with our third kind of expressive musical In order for the analogy between musical contour and the con-
feature, the major, minor, and diminished chords; for they do not tour of human expression behavior to work non-representationally,
have any contour at all, so find no analogue, apparently, in the con- it must work subliminally: that is to say, we must not be fully aware
tours of human expression behavior. I shall deal with these seem- of what is going on; we must not be aware of the analogy. Let us, for
ingly anomalous expressive features in a moment. But before I do the moment, assume that this is what is happening. But why should
I want to complete this account of the contour theory. we hear emotions in the music because of this subliminal perception,
The contour theory of musical expressiveness faces immediate and not something else?
problems. To begin with, it must not become a representational I believe one possible answer to this question can be found in
theory: it must not, that is to say, be construed as the theory that a.we-llknown perceptual phenomenon. When presented with ambi-
music 'represents' the voice and gesture of human expression, the guous figures, we tend to see them as animate rather than inanimate
way paint on canvas represents the visible features of the world. For forms:E_ liying i:ather thanoon-living entities. We tend to see living
representation does not capture the way we experience the emotive forms in clouds, in stains on walls, in the shadowy things lurking
qualities of music. We do not, that is to say, hear sounds as repres- in the woods. We see the stick as a snake. Why? Because, perhaps,
entations of melancholy and cheerful behavior, the way we see paint we are hard-wired by evolution- by natural selection- to do so.
on canvas as a representation of melancholy and cheerful men and Evolution says: 'Better safe than sorry. Better wrong than eaten.'
women, and then hear the music, in virtue of these representations, Living things can be dangers to you. It is better to see the stick,
as melancholy and cheerful. We hear the melancholy and cheer- immediately, incorrectly, as a snake, than to be snake bit, in ponder-
fulness of the music immediately, in the music, and can be quite ing the question, ifit turns out to be a snake after all .
unaware of the features of the music in virtue of which it is melan- Now, if this be true of sights, might it not be true of sounds as
choly or cheerful. And even if we are consciously aware of the well? Might it not be the case that we are hard-wired by natural

40 - Emotions in the Music Emotions in the Music - 41

selection to hear sounds, wh~re possible, as animate: where pos- to hear ambiguous sounds as animate and (potentially) threaten-
sible, as in music, as utter nee and 'b ehavior'? I advance that as a ing has atrophied in us, like the a endix, and remains a vestigial
possible, perhaps plau:>ible, hypothesis. If it is true, it tells us why relic of a more sound-oriented past. To put it another way, it is not
we hear the analogue of musical contour to human behavior and completely unreasonable, on evolutionary grounds, to think that,
not to the other things it might resemble. { while the seeing of ambiguous forms as animate remains a con-
But if we hear sound as animate, why do we hear it as.exp.res_Wly 1 scious phenomenon of human perception, the hearing of sounds
a~ate.? Well, if you want to carry through the 'survival' idea, it is I that way has sunk back into semi-consciousness as a kind of'back-
to our advantage to know what emotive attitude is being evinced ground noise.'
towards us by the living creature we may be encountering. If it is I Here, then, is one theory of how music comes to embody expres-
anger, we must prepare for fight or flight to be safe. If it is a benign
emotion, other behavior is appropriate.
I sive qualities like melancholy and cheerfulness. It is agreed on all
hands that music is melancholy, and cheerful, and so on, in virtue of
One might also add to these 'evolutionary' considerations the certain standardly accepted features. It is perennially remarked on
fact that just those 'simple' emotions we tend to hear in music are that these features bear analogy to the expression behavior, bodily,
emotions whose expression behavior in human beings has direct gestural, vocal, linguistic, of human beings. One can construct an
analogues in the expression behavior of the higher primates and evolutionary story of how and why we might be subconsciously,
other mammals. In other words, their m odes of expression seem subliminally aware of this analogy and that this should cause us to
hard-wired and deep in the inherited nature not only of us, but of perceive the music as melancholy or cheerful or the like as we per-
other animals as well. This can be seen as corroborating evidence for ceive the sadness of th e St Bernard's face. I have named this theory
the evolutionary story already told. thefc~ntour theory of musical expressiveness ..
But now a further question presses itself upon us. In the case of But we have yet to work one further element into the contour
ambiguous visual phenomena, we are conscious of what we are see- theory: that is the expressive chords, maj or, minor, and diminished.
ing (or think we are seeing). I take the stick for a snake and run. These chords are generally perceived as cheerful, melancholy, and
r
However, that does not seem to be what is happening in music. We anguished, respectively; and you can hear this for yourself by play-
are conscious of the expressive property, the emotion; we are not ing the three notes together on the piano: first, C-E-G (major); then
conscious of taking the musical contour for human utterance or C- E flat-G (minor); finally, C- E flat-G fl at (diminished). The pro-
behavioE:.I Is there any plausible reason for this to be the case? We blem is that these individual chords, not having a contour, being
can't just assume it to make our theory work. experienced as simple qualities, do not seem to bear any analogy at
Well, consider this. The sense of sight is the primary 'survival' all to human behavior- hence must be expressive of cheerfulness,
sense for human beings (and other of the higher primates). The melancholy, and anguish in some other way than that allowed for
sense of hearing is not, although it may very well have been for our by the contour theory of musical expressiveness. So the contour
ancestors way down the evolutionary chain. Thus there is no need theory cannot be the whole story.
for us consciously to hear things as threatening the way we con- At least this much can be said for the contour theory straightaway.
sciously see things that way. So it is""hQ_t completely unreasonable to It rs--t?o worse off than any other theory in this regard. There is no
suppose that what may very well have been a propensity COiis'clously generally accepted explanation for the difference in emotive quality

42 - Emotions in the Music Emotions in the Music - 43

between the major and minor chords, over which much ink has Might one suggest, then , that what gives the diminished chord its
been spilled in the last 300 years. So, that the contour theory cannot dark, anguished quality it its function, in musical structure, as an
provide one is no great deficit. But there is no harm , anyhow, in try- active, unconsummated, unresolved chord? It is restless, so to say, in
ing. Here are two suggestions. its musical function; when it occurs in a compositional structure,
The first suggestion is that we hear the vertical structure of the at least until fairly recently in the history of the Western harmonic
- -~

chords as a kind of contour. Compared to the major triad-that is, system, it imparts that restlessness to the contour of the melody
the major three-note chord, C-E-G- the minor triad has a lowered it accompanies. From its 'syntactic' or 'grammatical' role in music
third: that is, the Eis the third of the C-major chord, the E flat is the it gains, by association, as it were, even when alone, its restless,
third lowered a half step, the smallest interval in the Western har- 'anxious' emotive tone.
monic system. (The Eis called the 'third' because it is the third note Furthermore, might this not be true , to a lesser degree, of the
up from the C: that is, C (r), D (2), E (3). The G is called the 'fifth' minor triad as well? It is, indeed, a matter of historical fact that the
because it is the fifth note up. ) Now think of the lowered third, E flat minor chord, until well into the nineteenth century, was considered
as kind of sagging, or sinking, depressingly from E to E flat. Might more active than the major, which is why compositions in the minor
that give a depressing, melancholy cast to the C-minor triad? There mode for a long time almost invariably ended on a major rather than
is a downward tending contour of the C-minor triad, as compared a minor chord. And, although ending on a minor chord is now no
to the C-major one, like the downcast contour of the melancholy big deal, I think we still feel the minor ending as more restless than
speaking voice or posture. And the diminished triad, C-E flat- G flat , the major. You can hear this for yourselfby resolving the diminished
is even more depressed: it has both a sinking third and a sinking fifth. triad, C-E flat-G flat, two different ways: first, by lowering the G flat
Pretty far-fetched? Perhaps so. one whole step to E (F flat) and rasing the Cone half step to D flat;
Well, then, let's try this. Perhaps the chords should not be con- and then doing what you did before, lowering the G flat to F and rais-
sidered as isolated elements but in context: that is to say, functioning ing the C to D flat. Do this a few times in succession. Which resolu-
in musical struc~e. Perhaps it is from their function within musical tion sounds more 'restful' to you . I would venture to predict that it
compositions that they gain their emotive color. is going to be the latter: the major resolution. For what you did first
If you go to the piano again, and play the major triad, C- E- G, the was to resolve the diminished chord to D flat minor, and then to
minor triad, C- E flat- G, and the diminished triad, C- E flat- G flat , resolve it to D flat major. I think you, like your musical ancestors for
in succession, I think you will perceive a big difference between over three centuries, found the major resolution gramatically and
the first two and the third. The diminished triad is an 'active' chord: emotionally the more fulfilling one: the one that sounds the most
that is to say, it sounds as if it must go somewhere; it must, as a musi- stationary; the one that sounds the most completely final.
cian would say, be 'resolved.' It can't stay at rest where it is. Or, I don't know if this attempt to accommodate the major, minor,
another way of putting it: you couldn't hear it as the final chord of a and diminished chords to the contour theory of musical expressive-
musical composition. To hear what I mean, now lower the G flat to ness is any more plausible than the first. In any event, even where the
D flat, and raise the C to D flat. You have , in doing that, 'resolved' the contour theory does best, with the larger structural elements of
diminished chord, and you can hear for yourself that things are music, particularly melody, it is not without serious problems and
now 'at rest.' many detractors.

44 - Emotions in the Music Emotions in the Music - 45

 In the version of the contour theory that I have given, my own ver- including an amateur like myself, for any trait you like. So it is prob-
sion, there are numerous difficulties that even I find daunting. Here ably wise not to place much faith in these exercises. The skeptical,
are some. therefore, will be wary of the evolutionary support I have adduced
To begin with, how convincing is the claim that there are recog- for the claims that, all things being equal, we will see living forms
nizable analogies or similarities between music and the 'shape' of rather than non-living ones in ambiguous perceptual arrays, and,
human expression? Do melodies really much resemble human second, that, because of the primacy of sight over hearing as a 'sur-
speech in any significant way? Many people think the similarities vival sense,' in human beings, our perception of'animate' forms in
adduced pretty far-fetched. And when one goes to supposed ana- sounds, as opposed to sights, will be dim or subliminal, as the con-
logies between how music sounds and how human expression looks, tour theory requires.
there is bound to be more skepticism still. Does it make any sense at Add all of these difficulties together and the contour theory
all to say that a passage of music is melancholy in virtue of sounding begins to look pretty shaky. Indeed, it looks shaky not only to its
the way a human being gestures or moves when he or she is melan- detractors but to at least one of its supporters as well: me. Having
choly? Can music sound like a gesture or bodily posture? Can sense vigorously defended the contour theory on two separate occasions,
modalities be crossed that way? There is certainly plenty ofroom for I can no longer say that I am not without serious qualms.
doubt about it. But the funny thing about the contour theory, or, in general, the
Furthermore, the whole psychological apparatus that the con- theory that music is expressive of the garden-variety emotions by
tour theory requires is highly conjectural, to say the least. W hat evid- virtue of analogy to human expression behavior, both vocal and
ence, if any, is there for the claim that listeners subliminally hear bodily, is its perennial attraction. It simply refuses to die, in spite of
the analogy, if indeed it exists, between the contour of music and its numerous difficulties. There doesn't seem to be another, more
human expression? And even if they do hear it, does that adequately plausible alternative.
explain our experience of hearing emotions in the music as percep- That there isn't another game in town, of course, does not consti-
tual qualities. As well, does the phenomenon of seeing things in tute much of an argument for the contour theory or its relations.
ambiguous figures-seeing the stick as a snake, or the faces and Tomorrow is another day, and may well bring another, more con-
figures in clouds- transfer to sounds and what we hear (if anything) vincing account.
in them? What, then, should we do here and now? When a problem
Finally, what of the evolutionary explanation offered for, first, the remains unsolved, one obvious strategy is to work at it until it gives
tendency to 'animate' ambiguous figures and, second, the differ- up its secret, and only then go on to the problem that logically fol-
ence between this tendency, as evinced in visual perception, and as lows next. But that is not the strategy I think will have the best
evinced in hearing? Are they plausible? Is there evidence for either? results. I think it a mistake for us to remain bogged down with the
The biologist Stephen]. Gould scorns such armchair evolution- question of how music comes to embody the garden-variety emo-
ary explanations as I have given, labeling them, contemptuously, tions as perceptual qualities. Rather, since there is a consensus, more
'just-so stories,' the point being that a natural selection story, just or less, that music does exhibit the expressive qualities in this way, let
like Kipling's fanciful 'explanations' for how the leopard got its us now go on to examine what role, as so understood, they play in
spots, or the elephant its trunk, can be made up by almost anyone, musical structure and the musical experience.

46 - Emotions in the Music Emotions in the Music - 47

 Let us, then, treat music , in this regard, as what the scientists
call a 'black box' : that is to say, a machine whose inner workings
are unknown to us. We know what goes in, and what comes out,
but what causes what goes in to produce what comes out- of that
we are ignorant. l\vith regard to how music comes to exhibit the CHAPTER 4
garden-variety emotions as perceptual qualities, it is to us a black
box;..1We know what goes in: the musical features that, for three cen-
turies, have been associated with the particular emotions music is A Little More History
expressive of. And we know what goes out: the expressive qualities
the music is heard to be expressive of. And rather than becoming
obsessed with penetrating this black box, we should , or at least
some of us should, go on to see what implications this new way of
looking at music's expressive qualities (for it is a new way) has for
our understanding of music as a whole. That is the project I propose
to pursu e in Chapters 6 and 7. But before I do that I must convey to
you some general idea of how music, and our experience of it, are For m ost people in the world, 'music' means sung music. For m ost
to be construed. Only then will we be able, so to speak, to add the people in human history, 'music' meant sung music.
garden-variety emotions, as perceptual qualities, into the mix, and The m odern 'problem of music' is the child of pure instrumental
determine the part they play. So we will put aside , temporarily, the music: absolute music; music alone. Wh at is the problem, and how
question of music and the emotions, in the following two chapters, did it arise?
only to return to it after the necessary groundwork has been laid. In the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the seventeenth cen-
tury, the composer's life was devoted mostly to the composition
of vocal music: for the Church, for secular occasions, and, later,
for the opera house and for occasions of State. This is not to say
that music played on instruments alone was unknown in these
pre-Modern peri ods. Some of it was vocal music played on instru-
ments. But some of it, as well , was written especially for the organ,
or harpsichord, or lute, or even specified combinations of instru-
ments. There was, indeed, instrumental music before the eighteenth
century.
But it is generally agreed that something about instrumental
music radically changed in the latter half of the eighteenth century.
Certainly its 'social status' migrated upwards, and with that the
amount of creative time it occupied in a composer's life. This is for

48 - Emotions in the Music

 historians of music to understand and explain. What it meant for 'representation.' To be a fine art required being representational.
the philosophy of music, however, is altogether clear. Vocal music, since antiquity, had been conceived of as representa-
I mentioned, in the first chapter, the formation, during the eight- tional; and the Camerata had reformulated that view in modern
eenth century, of what has been called the 'modern system of the terms. Thus it posed no problem for the new project of determining
arts .' What this event betokened was the realization that a number what made the fine arts the fine arts. 'Representation' was the pass-
of practices .once thought of as 'crafts' were better understood as word; and vocal music was in on the secret. For the time being,
akin to poetry, and henceforth to be classified, along with it, as the instrumental music , far harder to see as a representatio~al art, didn't
'fine arts': the very practices that we now understand to fall under matter.
that rubric. However, the rise of instrumental music, in the second half of
The last such practice to be gathered in, and th e m ost trouble- the eighteenth century, changed all that. It became a 'contender';
some, was music. It was the last, because the most troublesome , and but its credentials were not at all as clear as those of vocal music.
th e trouble lay in th e rise to prominence, in the latter half of the When you hear (and see) someone singing, it is not difficult to
century, of pure instrumental music. Here is why interpret the singer as representing someone speaking the words
As we have already seen, as far back as Plato, there was the belief she sings, as when you hear the characters in Shakespeare's plays
that music represents or imitates the passionate speaking voice. speaking in poetry, you naturally interpret them as representing
This belief was given a powerful formulation on the eve of the people speaking in ordinary prose. (The English kings did not
seventeenth century by the Florentine Camerata; and the belief speak in verse. ) And as we think of Shakespeare's plays as represen-
endured through the eighteenth. But always it was vocal music that tational works of art-poetic representations of people convers-
was meant by 'music.' And it was vocal music that the repres- ing in ordinary prose- so we do not have much trouble thinking
entational th eory most plausibly described. Thus, from Plato to the of composers, in their vocal music, as contriving representational
middle of the eighteenth century, the reigning view was that music works of art- works of art representing speaking or (in opera) even
is a 'representational' practice: it represents the human speaking conversation.
voice. Vocal music, that is. However, when confronted with a late-eighteenth-century sym-
What of instrumental music? Well , it was much more difficult phony, by Haydn or Mozart, in which a considerable number of
to understand it as a representation of the human speaking voice. players on various instruments cooperatively produce an intricate
But, no matter; for while pure instrumental music remained on the sound structure with little apparent resemblance to human vocal
periphery, a mere sideshow, there was little need to bother about it. expression, it becomes far from easy to conceive of what one is
If you had a good theory of vocal music, you had a good theory of experiencing as artistic representation in any of its familiar forms.
music , for all intents and purposes. But nor, at this point in the history of instrumental music, can
Why did one need a 'theory' of music? Just because the mod- such compositions be dismissed as peripheral. In the case of Haydn,
*' ern system of the arts demanded it. If the arts of poetry, painting, they are his central, defining task. Haydn's reputation, by the last
quarter of the eighteenth century, was founded, largely, not on his
drama, and the rest were the fine arts, there had to be some defin-
ing character that they all had in common: omething that made vocal music, but on his compositions for instruments alone. And
- ~~
it was an international reputation. The point is, then, that by this
tb:_m the fine arts. And that something was agreed on all hanas to be

50 - A Little More History A Little More History - 51

time, if one were going to explain how 'music' was one of the fine Critique of Aesthetic Judgment, and Critique ofTeleologicaljudg-
arts, one would have to include as 'music' not merely vocal music ment. The second part, Critique of Teleological Judgment, is con-
but instrumental music as well. The problem was that the reliable cerned with the problem, particularly troublesome in Kant's day, of
old formula, 'The fine arts are the arts of representation, music is a our judgments concerning the apparent purposes we find in Nature:
representation of the passionate speaking voice, so music is one of fo r example, the 'purpose' of the giraffe's long neck, which is to
the fine arts,' did not work any more, at least not in any obvious way. enable its foraging in the highest branches of trees, or the 'purpose'
It did not work any more because it did not seem, at least, to work for of the heart, which is to pump blood. ('Teleological' means 'having
pure instrumental music; and pure instrumental music was now too to do with purpose,' and comes from the Greek word for 'purpose,'
important, both as an activity and as a 'social' phenomenon, to be telos. )
ignored. The theory of art and beauty is laid out in Part I of the Critique of
One of the central projects of philosophers of art, during the judgment. But its title, Critique of Aesthetic Judgment, is liable to be
eighteenth century, was to make firm the foundation of the fine misleading; so it would be a good idea to clear that up right away
arts, which was representation. Absolute music, pure instrumental before we go on. The confusion arises because Kant's use of the
music, was a stumbling block. It was difficult to place on that word 'aesthetic' differs radically from ours. When we talk about
foundation . Most philosophers paid scant (if any) attention to the 'aesthetic' judgments, we mean judgments that have to do with
problem of absolute music. The knew little about it (or about music matters of art and beauty. Thus, we think the judgment 'The sunset
in general) and tended to pass it off as a representational art, with is beautiful' is a typical aesthetic judgment, whereas we don't think
no real discussion of how such a claim might be made out or what that of a judgment like 'This steak tastes good. ' But Kant would have
substantial difficulties it faced. A prime example is the distinguished thought both of these judgments are aesthetic judgments because
Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid (1710-96), who suggested mus- all he meant by an aesthetic judgment was a judgment based on
ical harmony be thought of as a representation of pleasant, good- the judger's 'feeling.' The judgment 'The sunset is beautiful,' Kant
natured conversation, musical dissonance as that of an angry, would have said, is made on the grounds that perceiving it produces
disputatious one, and let it drop without further attempt at elabora- in the admirer of sunsets a pleasurable feeling, and the same would
tion, commenting only that he knew little about music in the first be true of the judgment 'This steak tastes good.'
place. What puzzled Kant was that even though judgments about
However, another philosopher, probably no more knowledge- the beauty of things, just like those about the tastes of food, are
able than Reid, nevertheless went more deeply into whether and 'aesthetic,' that is, based on the subjective feelings of the judgers,
how absolute music could be a fine art than any other philosopher of they are nevertheless spoken with, as it were, a different 'voice .'
the first rank in the period. That philosopher was Immanuel Kant When one says, 'This steak tastes good,' one is understood to be
(1724-1804), who produced, without a doubt, the most profound saying, 'This steak tastes good to me. ' The taster is making a singular,
treatise on the subject of what we now call 'aesthetics' thatthe eight- personal judgment, and would not be put out if someone else were
eenth century was going to see. to say of the same steak, 'This steak does not taste good to me.' But,
Kant's reflections on art and beauty are to be found in his Critique Kant thought, not without some justification, I believe, that when
of judgment (1790). This work is divided into two parts, called: one makes a judgment like 'The sunset is beautiful,' one is speaking

52 - A Little More History A Little More History - 53

with a 'universal voice.' One is not saying, 'The sunset is beautiful to into the judgment, making it no more universal than any other judg-
me,' and one is put out when someone else says, of the same sunset, ment based on feeling- for example, judgments about the tastes of
'Not beautiful at all.' The puzzle is how there can be judgments that foods.
are both aesthetic and universal, which, Kant thought, judgments of But surely everyone has some belief or other, perhaps many more
the beautiful are. than one, positive or negative, about sunsets. So it looks as if the
The major task Kant undertook in the Critique of Aesthetic problem Mr Positive and Mrs Negative are having with their sunset
Judgment, its defining task, really, was the task of explaining how is everyone's problem with every sunset, and, more generally, every-
judgments of the beautiful could be both aesthetic and universal. one's problem with anything they find beautiful. It is the problem of
Like all of Kant's philosophical explanations, it is notoriously dif- achieving the pure judgment of taste in the face of all of the prior
ficult to understand, and it would be inappropriate to enter into a beliefs, concepts, and other conceptual predispositions that perturb
technical analysis of Kant's argument in a book such as this one. But it.
I believe one can, in an informal way, catch on to what Kant is saying What Kant argues, then, is that if someone can, to stick with our
in this regard; and it is important that we do so, because Kant's ex- previous example, gaze at a sunset in temporary abstraction from all
planation of how judgments of the beautiful can be both aesthetic his beliefs or concepts concerning sunsets, and contemplate merely
and universal has important implications for his account of music, its visual appearance alone, he will then have achieved the attitude
and his account of music has important implications for my account of' disinterestedness' from which a pure judgment of taste can issue.
of music. The idea is that in this attitude of disinterestedness I have removed
Returning, now, to the example of the sunset, suppose we do have all of the personal factors that make judgments based on feeling
two opposing judgments. Mr Positive says, 'My, what a beautiful singular rather than universal. So, if you achieve this attitude and,
sunset,' and Mrs Negative gives the opposite opinion. Mr Positive as well, if Mr Positive and Mrs Negative achieve this attitude, then
then adds, as if to win Mrs Negative over to his view, 'This sunset we will all agree, on the basis of feeling alone, that the sunset is
truly is displaying forth the glory of God,' to which Mrs Negative, beautiful.
not to be beguiled by such maudlin sentimentality, replies, 'This What, then, are we agreeing on? Well Mr. Positive has, for the
sunset is the result of the appalling air pollution extending over the moment, ceased to see the sunset as an act of God, Mrs Negative has
entire State of New Jersey.' ceased to see it as an 'act' of pollution, we have all ceased to place
What is noteworthy about this exchange between Mr Positive it under any of our sunset concepts or beliefs. What's left? The
and Mrs Negative, from Kant's point of view, is that neither has answer is: its form.JWhen we agree that the sunset is beautiful, if *
->K
offered what Kant calls a 'pure judgment oftaste.' That is because we have really achieved the attitude of disinterestedness towards it,
each of their judgments has been tainted, so to speak, by an extrane- it is the form of the visual a_p earance that we are talking about._\
ous belief about the sunset: in Mr Positive's case, a belief favorable to Furtl;; rmore, Kant points out ov~r a;d over again, we do not even
it, in Mrs Negative's case, a belief unfavorable. Seeing the sunset as make a commitment to the actual existence of the thing, whatever it
displaying forth God's glory causes it to please Mr Positive, while might be, the form of which we judge beautiful. The form of the
seeing it as the result of air pollution causes it to displease Mrs sunset, after all, is invariant with the mode of the sunset's existence.
Negative. Each has injected a strain of the personally 'idiosyncratic' Whether it is a real sunset, a dream sunset, or a hallucinatory sunset

54 ~ A Little More History A Little More History ~ 55

 makes no difference. Whatever the existential status of the sunset, the formal properties of art are its only art-relevant ones (however
the form of its visual appearance remains constant; and it is its form such properties might be construed). On the contrary, he believed
that we are reacting to in the pure judgment of taste. This is Kant's that works of art, being representational, have a ' content' or 'mean-
'formalism.' ing' and that this content or meaning is an essential part of their
But why, the skeptical may ask, should we think that, when we nature. His teaching here is subtle and (as always) difficult. But the
remove from our contemplation of the sunset all our personal, gist of it is this.
acquired beliefs and concepts concerning sunsets, and this one in Works of fine art are, for Kant, essentially, works of genius. Thus,
particular, we will all, as a consequence, necessarily agree in our esti- when Kant talks about the nature of the fine arts, he is speaking, usu-
mate of its beauty? Perhaps we are inherently different in our estima- ally, about art at its highest level; and so we shall understand him.
tions of the beautiful, not merely different because of our acquired (He does have a way of fitting not-so-great art into his scheme, but I
beliefs and concepts. A further argument, then, would seem to be cannot go into that here. ) Such art, the art of genius, has 'content' at
required to show that, when we achieve the state of' disinterested- two levels. First of all, it has what might be called 'manifest cont t.'
ness,' our judgments of the beautiful will converge: will agree . And So, to take one of Kant's own examples, a poem might tell us about
Kant does indeed provide one. In effect, he argues that, as he puts it, the sun going down at the end of a perfect summer day. ( Back to sun-
we are suitors for agreement because there is a ground common to sets again! ) But what its important content is, if it is the art of genius,
all of us. is not that. Any mediocrity can write a poem about a sunset at the
The common ground of humanity that, Kant believed, assures end of a perfect summer day. What happens in the art of genius is
agreement in judgments of the beautiful is the joint operation of that the manifest content sets in motion, in its audience, a rich chain
two common, basic human faculties: the imagination and the of ideas, the 'aesthetic id ,' Kant calls them, which proliferate
understanding. These are the faculties Kant took to be complicit in indefinitely, giving the work its deep, albeit ineffable content: it can
our acquiring and making claims to knowledge. 1But when they are be felt, so to say, but never explicitly stated. It is what gives the art of
employed in the disinterested contemplation of form , they are then,
as Kant put it, in a kind of'free play' that issues in the pleasure of the The effect of this deep content, the chain of aesthetic ideas, is
beautifuL_,We all share these faculties in common, as we all share much the same as the effect of the perceptual presentation when
the capacity for knowledge; and when they are in this 'harmonious' apprehended disinterestedly: it engages the harmonious free play of
free play, not doing any work, as it were , we all share the pleasure the imagination and understanding.
thereof-the pleasure that makes judgments of the beautiful, the Besides their deep content of aesthetic ideas, Kant also believes,
pure judgments of taste, both aesthetic and, nevertheless, universal. quite naturally, that works of art can possess formal beauty as well.
So much, then, for the beauty of sunsets and other such natural But- and this will be very important in his discussion of music-
phenomena, big and small. We are after different game: the under- Kant distinguishes sharply, in works of art (and elsewhere), betwe:_:i
standing of works of art; in particular, the elusive art of absolute beau he calls '~~ In an oil painting, for example, the
music. How does Kant's analysis of the beautiful pay off there? visual forms have beauty. The colors, however, even though people
Contrary to what some people may think, Kant was not a formal- may ordinarily call them 'beautiful,' cannot, strictly speaking, be
ist in his philosophy of art, if being a formalist means believing that beautiful; for, as we have already seen, only form can be beautiful:

56 - A Little More History A Little More History - 57

only form can be the object of the pure judgment of taste. Colors, With regard to deep content, music does not fare so well. Music
per se, are perceived as simple qualities, without form, hence do not does, according to Kant, have something like manifest content (as I
provide the pleasure of the beautiful in the free play of the cognitive have called it), in the form of its expressive properties. Kant, in other
faculties.rwhat they can provide is the pleasure of their ' words, thought music could be described in terms of the garden-
which is to say, pure sensuous eleasure, the pleasure of ph sical variety emotions. He even thought this manifest, expressive content
~ensatiop.J. could excite aesthetic ideas in the listener. But, for reasons that are
To sum up, then, Kant thinks that works of the fine arts, the not altogether clear (at least to me), he did not think that the musical
works of genius, exhibit two definitive characteristics. They possess chain of aesthetic ideas succeeds in engaging the free play of the
b~ty-2£ form; and they possess r~resentational deep con~nt: the imagination and understanding. Rather, he thought it merely effects
power to excite a chain of ineffable ideas, the aesthetic ideas, which, a purely bodily relaxation, so to speak. In ~~ then, for Kant,
like the beauty of form, engage the harmonious free play of the music can interact only with the body, not the mind, through its
imagination and understanding. deep co~d on-that ~ccount, apparently, fails to achieve the
The problem of whether music, absolute music, that is, is a fine second condition for being a fine art. It is artlike in form, but not in ~
art, or, as Kant puts it, merely an art of the 'agreeable' (which would ~(Content, he says elsewhere, is added to music when it is
be an art of 'charm'), is the problem of whether absolute music joined with a text. )
possesses beauty of form, and whether it can excite aesthetic ideas The significance of Kant's not granting absolute music full status
capable of engaging the free play of the cognitive faculties. It cannot as a fine art is not something we need go into. What is very import-
be fully a fine art without both. ant to concentrate on is his positive conclusion: that absolute music
Let us take the form question first . Kant's approach to it will seem is artlike in its possession of formal beauty: that it is a beautiful play
strange to us; for, rather than talk about the 'forms' of music, as we of sensations. This conclusion can be considered the seed pearl of
usually think of them, the large temporal patterns by which musical musical formalism.
compositions are organized, and the smaller formal patterns inter- It did not much matter, in the development of musical formal-
nal to the large ones, Kant concerned himself, rather, with the ques- ism after Kant, whether or not he thought music one of the fine
tion of whether individual musical sounds themselves were simple arts, properly so-called. What mattered was that he ascribed the
perceptual qualities or whether they had form we might perceive. If beauty of absolute music solely to its formal properties. That these
the latter, then music could fulfill the first criterion offine art: formal properties were the vibrations of sound, not the kinds of formal
beauty. Kant embraced the latter alternative. properties succeeding formalist theorists were at all concerned
Kant based his claim that musical sounds possess perceptible about, was easily forgotten. What was important was that preg-
form on the fact that sounds are vibrations of the air, that is to say, are nant phrase, 'the beautiful play of sensations,' and, as well, Kant's
waves, and, hence, have a form (or periodicity). It is this Qercei;tl:ible ~ comparis~ of_music with the decorative arts. In particular, Kant
wave-form that, Kant believed, enables musical sounds to be beauti- analogized music without words to wallpaper, designs ala grecque,
ful. Being beautiful, they give music the first requirement of a fine which is to say, free floral designs, and other examples of pure
art: formal beauty. And, on the strength of this, Kant described decoration. This was, indeed, formalism. But what Kant's musical
music as ~he beautiful play of sensations( formalism totally lacked was any real recognition of the 'logic'

58 - A Little More History A Little More History - 59

I
behind the form. He gave little evidence, in his reflections on music, terms. Of course music does not literally move (unless it is being
of having any knowledge of the principles that lay at the heart of played by a marching band). It is a pattern of sounds succeeding one
musical structure. His musical formalism was a fruitful idea, but an another in a temporal order, as the kaleidoscope is a temporal suc-
empty one, really. What it required was fleshing out in real musical cession of visual patterns.
terms. That fleshing out was begun by Hanslick. If Kant was the So far, there is little advancement over Kant. For, even though
genetic father of musical formalism, Hanslick was its nurturing Hanslick's kaleidoscope may be a more felicitous illustration of
parent. tonally moving forms than Kant's wallpaper or designs a la grecque,
It will be recalled that Hanslick presented, in his little book On it surely fails to capture an absolutely vital element in music. For, as
Musical Beauty, a negative thesis and a positive one. The negative Hanslick well says, music is not merely' an ear-pleasing play of tones'
thesis, which we have already discussed, was that music's beauty (surely an echo of Kant's 'beautiful play of sensations'). It is not mere-
does not at all lie in its expressiveness. The positive thesis, which we ly a kaleidoscope of euphoni~ noises.
are now to look at, holds that it lies in the musical materials them- But what is missing from the characterization of music as, in
selves, and especially their form. Kant's words, a beautiful play of sensations, or, in Hanslick's, an
Although he was not a philosopher by trade, I do not think ear-pleasing play of tones? Music is that, after all, if 'beautiful' and
there can be any doubt that Hanslick was greatly influenced by 'ear-pleasing' are given a wide interpretation. Hanslick, in one very
Kant's philosophy of beauty. He could not bring to his project dense and suggestive passage in Chapter III of On Musical Beauty,
philosophical genius. But he could bring, as Kant could not, real tries out a number of images to capture the extra baggage that
musical knowledge and true musical sensibility, being a musician absolute music carries, over and above the beautiful play of sen-
and critic. sations or ear-pleasing play of tones. In contrast to arabesque,
Hanslick famously described music as I ~onally moving form_s. Hanslick says, music is a picture, but one whose content we cangot _ ""-
And it is not, perhaps, too far-fetched to understand the phrase as gpress in w..o.r:ds.or oouc.;ep.ts Or, unlike arabesque, music has sense
another way of expressing Kant's thought that music is the beautiful and logic-but not in the way that science or history has sense or
play of sensations. Decoration, for Hanslick, as for Kant, provides logic. Its sense and logic are purely musical, which is to say, express-
the leading analogy. Where Kant speaks of designs a la grecque, ible only in musical terms. Finally, unlike arabesque, music is~ Y..rlM""f~ 1
Hanslick speaks of arabesque. They amount to pretty much the oflan a e, but-you guessed it!-a language we c:._annQIJ!2nsla~
same thing: free decorati n. into any other, even though we can 'speak' and 'understand' it.
But it is noteworthyrhat Hanslick goes quickly from static What are we to make of these various images?
design to design in motion. Music is, for him, the sonic analogue It seems apparent that Hanslick is trying, with these images of
of the kaleidosco e: a toy that we all have held in our hands at one visual representations, sense, logic, linguistic meaning, to capture
time oranother, and that, clearly, was already familiar in Hanslick's something about music that separates it from the first images with
day. which Hanslick introduced it as a purely formal art: the arabesque
The kaleidoscope provides what analogues such as wallpaper, and kaleidoscope. But what is it he is trying to capture?
designs a la grecque, and arabesque cannot: decoration in motion, Let us go back to the kaleidoscope for a moment. When you look
although we must always understand musical motion in metaphorical through its eye-piece and turn the wheel, you observe a sequence of

60 - A Little More History A Little More History - 61

symmetrical colored patterns succeeding one another. What you do a 'language,' if that is the right word for it, without its semantic
not see is any rhyme or reason to the sequence: nothing connects corppon~.

one pattern with the next. They follow randomly as the bits of But what is left of a language if you distill off its semantic com-
colored glass configure themselves, tumbling inside the kaleido- ponent? What is left is its syntax: its grammatical com anent. What
scope's tube. But a sense of order, a sense oflogic, a sense of'sense' is is left is a collection of inscriptions with rules for their correct
exactly what you do get in a well-wrought musical composition (or combination: rules for the stringing-together of the meaningless
even in a not-so-well-wrought one). And it is that quality of music, a inscriptions into grammatical, syntactically correct chains, or, if you
opposed to the random quality of the kaleidoscope, that Hanslick will, 'sentences' -except they are 'sentences' without meaning.
is trying to capture with his images. It seems, then, that what Hanslick was at least beginning to
The logical and linguistic images are, I think, the most suggestive see is that absolute music is, as it were, a~ of2 yntax without a
and appropriate for what Hanslick is getting at. Let us look at the lin- semantics: language-like but not a language. It does not convey
guistic image for a moment.
- '--
merely a sense of order. It does convey that. But it is a very special
Compare the succession of sounds in a paragraph of English kind of order: t on erof syntactical structure.\ That, I am certain,
prose, read aloud, with the succession of colored patterns in the is what Hanslick was trying to get at when he said that the pro-
kaleidoscope. What's the difference? It is that the colored patterns gression of musical sounds has a kind of 'sense' or 'logic,' but not
have no logical connection but the English sentences do: the_~ semantic sense or logic. This was a tremendous insight, and gave
connected by their ~in~ and the total meaning of the paragraph- to musical formalism the backbone it needed to do real justice to
that they comprise. the deep musical experience- an experience I doubt Kant ever
Are the successive tones of music connected in the way the words had. What Hanslick realized was that, without having a meaning,
and sentences are in the English paragraph? Is music a kind oflan- absolute music, at its best, has~l~c'-a quality of inex~ able
guage? Hanslick seems to be suggesting that it is severely con- progress
--.. and direction. (Listen to Beethoven for your first, over-
strained, because he insists that music is a language that cannot be whelming corroboration of that. )
translated into any other language . If it could, then Hanslick would The direct heir of Hanslick's formalism is frequently said to be
be turning against his formalism-that music has no extramusical Edmund Gurney, whose great 1880 book, The Power of Sound, has
meaning or content, either emotive or any other. However, this is already been mentioned. Surprisingly, there is no mention of
wondrous strange. What kind oflanguage could it be that is impos- Hanslick in it, although I find it difficult to believe that Gurney was
sible to translate into any other language? Indeed, we know that unfamiliar with his predecessor's ideas. Gurney's own characteriza-
marks on paper or stone, or successions of sounds, are language and tion of musical structure, 'i.fkalJ.notion,' is hard not to hear as an
not meaningless patterns just because we can translate them into a echo ofHanslick's 'tonally moving forms.'
language that we can understand. (That is how we determined t at Gurney's formalism is almost entirely a formalism . 2.f ~dy_,
the Rosetta Stone had linguistic inscriptions on it and not mere which he takes to be the major operator in music- at least any
decorations.) music that Gurney takes seriously. Gurney's basic idea is that, to put
What would music be if it were a language in principle im- it baldly, 112usic is melody,'.and so ~eauty of music is the beauty tf
possible to translate? It would be a 'language' minus its meaning: melodic form.

62 - A Little More History A Little More History - 63

 But what is melodic form? It is, according to Gurney, the flowi~ out, are also present in mediocre , unlovely melodies as well as in
connectedness of melody; and that certainly sounds right. A melody is beautiful ones.
individual tones heard as a -continuous connected whole. It has, As a result of this skepticism, Gurney tends to represent ideal
---"-"""'-......._..__ """'
as Hanslick would say, a 'logic,' a 'sense.' It has, as Gurney would motion as if it were some kind of mysterious, non-natural, almost
say, 'ideal motion.' If you don't hear individual tones as connected, supernatural quality. Consequently, he ascribes the perception of
you are not hearing melody. Furthermore, bad melodies frequently this elusive quality to a special, 'musical faculty' that is as imponder-
sound 'disconnected' to us, in comparison with good melodies. So able as the musical quality it is supposed to track. This kind of
the sense of connectedness, the sense of 'logic,' helps us to distin- thing is not helpful, although it is an understandable , and perhaps a
guish not only melody from non-melody but good melody from healthy, overreaction to the danger of oversimplifying the concept
bad. Gurney is onto something here: so far so good. of formal beauty. That a formal property of one melody contributes
Two basic problems are generated by formalism, as Gurney to its beauty does not imply that it will contribute to the beauty of
understands it. The first is very obvious. Melody simply cannot bear every melody in which it is present, and certainly does not imply
the weight that Gurney places upon it. Even the music Gurney sees that it will make every melody in which it is present beautiful. But
as the pinnacle, the music of Beethoven, cannot be comprehended nor does it follow that, because it does not contribute to beauty in
solely, or even largely, in terms of melody. And with music of the one place, it cannot in another. In other words, there is no formal
Medieval period, and the Renaissance, where melody, in Gurney's rmul_a for formal beauty in melody, or anywhere else; Gurney is
sense, is hardly even a major principle, let alone a dominant one, certainly right about that. That does not mean, however, that we
his melodic formalism fails utterly. The failure of his theory to man- cannot, on a case-by-case basis, discern some of the reasons why this
age the music composed prior to the time of Haydn, Mozart, and melody is beautiful and that one banal. And it certainly does not
Beethoven fazes Gurney not one bit. The music of the Middle Ages mean that the formal beauty of melody, or its 'ideal motion,' as
and Renaissance Gurney simply puts down as primitive-of histor- Gurney would have it, dwells in some never-never land beyond the
ical interest, perhaps, but not of great artistic merit. No one like ken of our natural faculties. Musical beauty, melodic or otherwise, is
myself, nurtured in historical musicology, can possibly accept such a_}YQnder, but not a mj_r~cle..:__
a historically skewed, historically prejudiced view of the history We should not, however, at the end of the day, let these doubts
of music, or such a naive view of musical 'progress,' as if music got about ideal motion and the special musical faculty obscure or
better and better as time wore on, like steam engines or printing tarnish Gurney's accomplishment. It is agreed on all hands to be a
presses. considerable one, all things considered. Given that Gurney greatly
Furthermore, there is, in Gurney's attempt to explicate the form overemphasized the importance of melody in Western art music , no
of melody, and how we perceive it, something that smacks of one doubts its importance nevertheless. Furthermore, Gurney's
mystification, so to speak, and that goes against the grain of the formalist analysis, with its emphasis on the sense of connection and
reasonable person. Quite rightly, Gurney is suspicious of trying to logical progression that well-wrought melody conveys, contributed
identify any obvious formal properties of a beautiful melody that in a significant way to the formalist project. Indeed, it is fair to say
cause it to be beautiful: that are the 'essence' of its beauty. For such that Gurney's Power of Sound represents the first complete and per-
formal properties that can be readily identified, he is fond of pointing suasive version of musical formalism to come down the pike.

64 - A Little More History A Little More History - 65

 Others, I am sure, will tell a different story of the coming to
be and the coming of age of musical form alism in the nineteenth
century. But by m y lights no such story could plausibly omit the
joint efforts , in this endeavor, of Kant, Hanslick, and Gurney. They
laid a firm foundation. On it I will build some superstructure in the
CHAPTER 5
chapter to come.
Formalism

'Formalism' is an ill-chosen word to describe l;1e account of abso-

lute music that I am about to give. It is, indeed, a11 ill-chosen word to
describe many other versions of musical formalism that resemble
mine in general outline but differ from it in major or fl'.: ;,.~ :· ~'~l:' : cts.
It is ill-chosen, I think, for two reasons.
To begin with, it suggests that the only aspect of music relevant
to its appreciation is its form; and this may be true of the views of
Kant, Hanslick, and Gurney, which represent its first flowering. But
it is certainly not true of my formalism that musical form is the only
artistically relevant aspect, and it is certainly not true of other ver-
sions of formalism currently in the marketplace.
Formalism is best defined, initially, in negative terms: in terms,
that is, of what music isn't. According to the formalist creed, abso-
lute music does not possess semantic or representational content. It
is not of or about anything; it represents no ·~ories,
gives no arguments, espouses no philosophies. According to the
formalist, music is 'pure' sound structure; and for that reason the
doctrine is sometimes called musical ~purism.:
.:;._.--

66 - A Little More History

 But once we arrive at the conclusion that, according to formal- formalist's question with regard to absolute music, What do we
ism music is pure sound structure, we see immediately that there is enjoy in our apprehension of musical structure?, is everyone's ques-
' ,.---._
more of artistic interest in it than form lone There are the elements tion, formalist or not. It is the question I now want to raise ' and , I
of the construction: the things out of which the construction is made. hope, answer satisfactorily.
And, unless you believe that only forms can be beautiful or artistic- Suppose I asked you, What do you enjoy inf uding a novel or see-
ally appreciated, these elements, in themselves, even those that do ing a movie? Very likely; many people would reply : the fictio
not have form, will be of artistic interest as well. The sounds of indi- events of the _EOvel or movje as they unfold. Needless to say; we
vidual notes or chords, the tone colors of the various instruments, enjoy ot er things as well: the be;_uty,of th langua e, if it is a lit -
all of those things out of which musical form is constructed, will also ary work_,_ the picture compositiorlif it is a movie, the structure of
have their appeal. We want to see the trees as well as the forest. the plot, and perhaps the profound questions of philosophy and
Formalism, then, is the view that absolute music has neither rep- morality the fictional work might pose. But surely what we al!_prin-
re~e.~ational nor semantic c t nt. Absolute music is a structure of cipally enjoy about much of the fiction we consume is th( stor .
~ but a structure that is of musical interest not only for its f~; Whatever else the great novelists of the nineteenth century were ,
for that too, of course; but for the elements of that form as ~ · they w~at storytellers, as were the great Hollywood directors
According to formalism, we are interested, musically, in all of the in the golden age of American narrative cinema.
'se~].ls' properties of the musical work, its form being one of Now let us ask the same question about musical structure that we
those, albeit perhaps the most important. just asked about fictional narrative. What is it we enjoy in listening
The second reason that 'formalism' is not a very good word for to the formal and sensual properties of absolute music unfold in our
the doctrine being put forward here is that the word suggests vi~ual listening space? If you are a formalist, there is but one reply. As in a
fo x:ms ('the human form divine'), static spatial forms; and musical work of narrative fiction, what we are enjoying is the u olding'
' fo~is temporal, although, of course, it can be, and usually is rep- <.. . . of~but not fictional events, like Hamlet's murder of Polonius
resented with, spatial diagrams. Musical forms are temporal pat- or Tarzan's rescue of Jane from a herd of stampeding elephants.
terns of sound. But 'formalism' is a term that has been in place for so The events that we are enjoying, as they unfold, are purely musical
long that discarding it would cause more confusion than clarity. events: S.QY d ever:.:_s.
(I doubt that 'temporal patternism' would catch on ifl were to pro- However, even though musical events are not narrated or depicted
pose it as an alternative. ) So 'formalism' let it remain, even though fictional events, but pure, meaningless sound events, our perception
not the perfect name for the thing. of them, and our enjoying of them, share some common cha a.Gt-er-
Now, that music possesses formal and sensuous properties we istics with our understanding and enjoyment of fictional narratives,
enjoy, in listening to it, no one denies. Even if you believe that whether read, in novels, or witnessed in plays and movies.'Roughly
absolute music possesses representational or semantic properties speaking, we think about the events we are experiencing, in some
beyond its structural and sensual ones, you still must also belieye similar ways, whether they are the fictional events of narrative art-
that its structural and sensual properties pleasure us in the ~ works or the pure sound events of absolute music. _J
ing, just as the forms and colors of representational paintings do, Imagine you are reading a novel for the first time. As you read
or the pure linguistic beauty of novels, plays, and poems. Thus, the along, you are introduced to the characters and are made privy to

68 - Formalism Formalism - 69
their actions and conversations, even sometimes their thoughts. But 'sense.' When we follow these plots, we do much the same thing
you are not a passive spectator. You think about what is transpir-
that we do in following fictional narratives. We_play question a_!!d "'*'
ing. You wonder how the hero is going to get out of the fix he is in, answer with them.
and you are surprised at how he manages the business. Or you guess, The way musical 'plots' play with our hypotheses, expectations,
early on, that he is going to fall in love with his fiancee's cousin, and surprises, and fulfillments has been brilliantly explicated by the
sure enough, that is what happens. You think that the butler did it;
music theorist Leonard B. Meyer in his ground-breaking work in
but in the end it turns out to have been the lord of the manor. Or you musical aesthetics and psychology Emotion and Meaning in Music
get the feeling that things are going to turn out happily for the down-
(1956), as well as in various essays and articles. I don't think a suc-
trodden peasants-and, lo, their rescuer appears. In other words, cessful musical formalism can be viable without making use of
when we attend to a fictional narrative, we play a kind of question- some of Meyer's conclusions. So I want to get the relevant ones, for
and-answer ame with it; or it plays the game with us. However you my formalism, on the record now.
want to put it, a fig:ion · _plays with our expectations con- Meyer bases his analysis of musical perception and appreciation
founding some, confirming others.... on what mathematicians call 'information theory.' But don't get
Furthermore, our expectations are conditioned by our previous scared. You don't have to be mathematical to understand the basic
experiences with the various genres of narrative fiction, and how principles; and the basic principles are all we need for our purposes.
they work. Thus, for example, my reactions to the twists and turns To get a basic idea of what 'inform ation theory' is, let us begin
of a detective story I am presently reading would be quite different if with what the word 'information' conveys in ordinary life and
I had never read a detective novel before. And the same for any other ordinary discourse. Suppose I tell you 'The sun will rise tomorrow.'
genre of fiction. Likewise, the experience I am now having of the
You might well reply: 'That's no news to me; you aren't telling
detective novel in my hands will alter my future experiences of me anything I don't know.' In other words, I have given you no
detective novels, as well as other works of fiction. My expectations 'information' ; for we usually understand that what it means to
are, in other words, in a constant state of flux , as are the other mind-
in arm somebq_dy of something is to tell her something she doesn't
sets I bring to m y experiences of fiction. air adx_know.
Now absolute music is not fiction , at least for the formalist.
But now suppose I tell you that the sun will not rise tomorrow
Nevertheless, a good deal of the way we react to narrative fiction
because of some impending cosmological catastrophe that the
transfers to our experience of music alone, minus, of course, the
astronomers have only just discovered. Surely that would be news to
fictional content. you: startling news indeed.
What I am getting at is this. Just as, in reading a novel, say, we
Furthermore, the events in question, the rising, or the not rising
think about what we are reading, frame hypotheses about what
of the sun, would be, respectively, no news and very big news. If you
will happen next, have our expectations frustrated or fulfilled, and awake to a rising sun, the fact of its rising is no news, because you
so on, so we will too in listening seriously, with concentration, to were as certain, the night before, that the sun would rise on the mor-
absolute music. Musical works have ' lots': not, to be sure, plots
row, as you were of anything else. The sun's rising did not tell you
with characters in action; rather, pure musical 'plo.t.s'; sound events
anything you did not already know: it conveyed no information.
occurring, as Hanslick urged, with a co~ecting musical 'logic' or But, on the other hand, if the sun does not rise next morning, that

70 - Formalism
Formalism - 71
is news: you believed with close to certainty that the sun would formal rule or principle that a symphony is to have four movements,
rise, and it didn't. The failure of the sun to rise was a complete sur- the first one fast, sometimes with a slow introduction, the second
prise: it told you something you definitely didn't know: it was slow and contemplative, the third in a lighter vein, either a minuet
highly informative. (in the classical symphony), or a 'scherzo' (since Beethoven), and the
Information theory is an extension of this common-sense notion final one fast, usually faster than the first movement, and often in
of what's news and what isn't. Information theory says that events rondo form in the classical period.
a e on ntinuum from the totally expected to the totally un- But the movements within work structures like the symphony, or
ex ected. The more expected an event, the less informative it is if it the sonata, also follow formal rules or patterns of their own (which
occurs, and vice versa: an unexpected event is 'highly informed,' an may vary with historical period). Thus the first movement of a clas-
expected event is not. sical symphony by Mozart or Haydn is in what is called 'sonata
What Leonard Meyer does is to apply the information theorist's form .' It goes something like this. There is a first theme or group of
concept of informed and uninformed events to musical events. In themes, a contrasting second theme or group of themes, and a clos-
other words, musical sound events are evaluated in terms of the ing theme or group of themes, constituting the first section of the
degree to which they are expected or unexpected. An unexpected movement: the exposition as it is now called. The second section,
musical event is highly informative, like the failure of the sun to rise , sometimes called the free fantasy section, or development, has no fixed
or uninformative, if expected, like the sun's rising right on schedule . form but allows the composer to work with her themes any way her
But what kind of musical 'events' are we talking about? And what imagination inclines her. The movement closes with a recapitula-
causes us to form expectations concerning them? tion, which, ordinarily, follows the same pattern as the exposition,
I will distinguish, for the purposes of this discussion, between first theme, second theme, closing theme, using the same thematic
two kinds of musical events: what I shall call ' syntactical eyeots' and material. This gives sonata movements a three-part symmetrical
I - - -
'formal events.' By s ntacti~ even!§ I mean those 'small'. events form : ABA.
that take place within the musical structure . These events are So the musical events with which musical information theory
governed by the ' rules'~ ofjnus~l grammar. Some have to do with deals are, as outlined above, syntactical events and formalevents
chord sequences, that is, what chords follow what other chords, which the listener has expectations abotrt~ch, in other words,
and with what frequency. Some have to do with melodic lines: for are expected to occur or not expected to occur, strongly, weakly,
example, when a melody goes up with a leap, from one note to or to any degree in between. From whence do these expectations
another five steps above, it 'should,' 'normally,' then descend step- arise?
wise. And some have to do with the manner in which melodic lines Expectations of musical events can usefully be divided into
can be combined in 'counterpoint' : for example, when it is permis- >I' 'external' and 'internal' expectations, which is to say, expectations
sible for two melodic lines to move in parallel motion, when they that one brings already formed to a work one is experiencing, and
must move in opposite directions, what intervals are permissible expectations that the work itself generates in one's listening to it.
between them, and so on. The former are the expectations one acquires quite naturally, with-
L Formal events are the l~e events of musical structure that are out being aware of it, in growing_ up in a specific musical environ-
'-
governed -by the various musical forms. Thus, for example, it is a ment. By listening to Western music, we become enculturated into

72 - Formalism Formalism - 73
 the musical scale, the harmonic syntax, and the formal structures listening to a musical composition that has been listened to many
characterizing our music, whether it be the popular genres, folk times before, and, hence, holds no surprises, because one 'knows
idioms, or the classical repertory. We bring this set of expectations, the story'?
at the ready, to any musical work we encounter; and the composer The answer to the first question is, I think, fairly straightforward .
assumes that they are present in the listener. The process of expectation, surprise, and fulfillment, of which the
The latter expectations, the internal ones, are aroused and frus- information theorist speaks, ~~tes both sciousl and unco -
trated or confirmed by the inn~gs_of the particular musical SQ~ly. I presume that, when I am consciously aware of music,
w rkitself that the listener may be attending to. It is part of the com- there is, always, an unconscious process going on, in which musical
poser's craft to play with the formal and syntactical expectations expectations are being aroused, fulfilled, and frustrated. But I am
of the listener; and it is part of the listener's pleasure to become going to leave the unconscious alone. Rather, what I am concerned
involved in this play. with is what goes on in the listener's consciousness when he or she
A musical work, then, is, among other things, a structure of sound is seriously and single-mindedly attending to a musical work, at a
events, running the gamut from expected to a very high degree to concert, or on a recording, for the sole purpose of enjoying the
unexpected to a very high degree: in terms of information theory, music. In my view, such a person-and I extrapolate here from
from a low to a high degree of info rmation. And, according to my own experience- is consciously playing what might be called
Meyer, satisfying music, 'good' music, if you like, must cut a path the 'hypothesis game' with music. He or she is thinking about the
~midway between the expected and the unexpected, or at least stay musical events taking place, is framing hypotheses about what is
far enough away from the one or the other not to become totally going to happen, and is sometimes surprised, sometimes confirmed,
either. If a work's musical events are all completely unsurprising, in his or her expectations.
uninformative in the information theorist's sense, then the music Note that the hypothesis game can go on w ith varying degrees_
will fulfill all of the listener's expectations, never be surprising- in Qf self-co~sciousness. One may be playing the hypothesis game
a word, will be boring. On the other hand, if the musical events and also be concentrating on how one is playing it and that one is
are all surprising, all highly informed, the musical work will be, in playing it: not m erely thinking but thinking about one's thinking.
effect, unintelligible: chaotic. The listener's expectations will all But playing the hypothesis game no more implies that one is think-
be frustrated, or the listener will fail to have any expectations at all, ing about how one is playing it than playing any other game implies
and will not be able to find her way in the work. New works, in novel such self-awareness. I point this out because people sometimes
or unfamiliar styles, will frequently exhibit this character, as will obj ect to musical enjoyment being necessarily a conscious activity
works from musical cultures other than the listener's own, either when what they mean is that it is not necessarily a self-conscious
because historically or geographically remote. activity- quite a different thing.
Two questions now pose themselves with regard to this Nevertheless, it may still be objected that I am over-intellectualizing
information-theoretical account of musical listening. First, to what what is going on in the listener's mind in attending to music. Per-
extent is this process of expectation, surprise, and fulfillment a haps, it will be said, this is what musicians and the musical experts
conscious process, to what extent operating, as it were, 'behind do, but surely it goes beyond what takes place in the mind of the lay
the scenes'? Second, how can the process work at all when one is listener.

74 - Formalism Formalism - 75
 Well, I don't think so. It certainly is the case that the musical musical composition beyond the most trivial. Repeated hearings of
expert has more conceptual apparatus, in the form of what is called a symphony or string quartet will cause the listener to become
'music theory,' with which to think about the musical experience, as acquainted with its general outlines, but hardly....gi:ve her photo-
it unfolds (and more of that in a moment). But we all have concepts g£;phic r~ calt So most music of substance will bear many rehear-
under which to place the musical events that we attend to; and it is ings before the danger of total familiarity looms.
my point that when we are really listening to music as a serious, Furthermore, there is, in absolute music, as in fiction , what might
engrossing activity, not merely as background to some other task, be called the persistence of illusion. Even though one may know
or for ' atmosphere,' we are, in the process, thinking about what we that some former y surprising event is about to occur in a composi-
are hearing. Furthermore, part of that thinking is in terms of the tion, because one has heard it many times before, one gets 'sucked
information theorist's fra mework ofl:!ypotheses, expectations~ur­ in,' as it were, once again, by the music, and reacts, essentially, in
pris~s, and fulfillmen~s. spite of one's self. It is rather like knowing someone is going to lunge
But now the second of our questions to the musical informa- at you but, nevertheless, involuntarily flinching when it happens. To
tion theorists remains. How can we play the hypothesis game with take an example, the ordinary course of events in a symphony, as I
music we have already heard? For the hypothesis game can only noted before, is for the first movement to be fast, the second move-
work, can only be fun, if we are not certain of the course the musical ment slow, the third movement a minuet or rapid scherzo, the finale
events will take. IfI think, 'Now the melody will come to a conclu- fast again. Beethoven adheres to this pattern in all ofhis symphonies
sion,' and it does, my expectation is fulfilled. Ifit doesn't, I am agree- up to the Ninth (except for the Sixth, the 'Pastoral,' which does not
ably surprised. That is the game. However, if I have already heard follow the usual four-movement form). In the Ninth, he puts the
the music before, I know, am certain, what the melody will do . So it the scherzo second and the slow movement third. And as many
makes no sense to say that my expectation has been either ful- times as I have heard th e work, I still am, in a funny sense, 'surprised'
filled, or frustrated. There can be no doubt about the outcome, any when the scherzo, a fast movement, occurs when I am 'expecting'
more than I can be in doubt about the ending of a novel I have the adagio. I, as it were, 'get into the story' all over again, as I do
read; and if there is no doubt, then the game loses its point, and its when I see Hamlet yet again.
pleasure. Obviously the outcome can't surprise me; nor, though, Now it is certainl:}Lte-be-exp-et:red that-no musical wor.k.1.no..mat-
can it confirm my hypothesis either. For there must be at least ter how complex, ~n be listened to ad-infinitum, without-ever los-
some doubt about the outcome, some possibility of surprise, for ing its effect. Nevertheless, it is the general experience of serious
the fulfilled expectation to provide me with aesthetic satisfaction. listeners that the great works in the repertory provide a lifetime of
If I know the butler did it, because I have read the book, then the normal listening. Thus, the 'problem' of rehearing music does not
fun of surmising that the butler did it, and turning out to be right, make implausible, by any means, the information theory of musical
evaporates. appreciation. The hypothesis game does survive the rehearing of
This problem, the so-called problem of rehearing music, has a music, in usual circumstances, and there is no doubt, I think, that it
fairly straightforward solution. To begin with, the rehearing prob- constitutes a significant part of our listening experience: but not, by
lem exaggerates the degree to which most listeners, even expert any means, the whole experience. Let me add to it what I shall call the
ones, can remember, in detail, the course of musical events in any 4 musical game of.Jlide and,seek'

76 - Formalism Formalism - 77
 So-called classical music, during most of its history, has been a things will turn out. But we are not completely passive observers of
music of more or less complicated structure. And it is in appreciat- the fictional proceedings: not intellectually passive, that is. A great
ing thi~omplicated, intriguing-structure-that musical enjoyment deal of our pleasure in the experience of fictional narrative is the
has been generated. pleasure we take in wondering what is going to happen, making
Even where melody has been a principal part of the musical conjectures about what is going to happen, and, of course, finding
experience, as in the period from the beginning of the eighteenth out what is going to happen: finding out if our conjectures are on the
century to the end of the nineteenth, it has been melody embedded, money or not. Narratives pose riddles we try to solve.
so to speak, in structure of a more or less complicated kind. Thus, a The forms of absolute music are plots without content. Or, if you
great deal of the interest such music generates is involved in seeking like, they arejlmrely musical stones1But, just as fictional narratives
out the melody in the structure. This is what I have referred to as the pose us questions and then answer them, so too do musical plots.
musical game of hide and seek, or, elsewhere, as Cherche le theme. just as fictional narratives may hold surprises in store for us, so too
In the familiar forms that Western art music has taken, in the may musical plots. Musical plots, like fictional ones, display 'events'
modern era, the fugue, sonata form, rondo, theme and variation, and for our enjoyment: in the latter, fictional events; in the former,
so on, the formal principle involved has been one kind or another sound events.
in which the listener's task is to find, to recognize, the principal But it cannot be emphasized too strongly, in this place, before I go
melody or melodies out of which the musical structure is consti- on, that, although absolute music may bear an analogy to fictional
tuted. It is the composer's task to vary these melodies, hide them, narrative in the ways I have just described, it is em hatically not
alter them, dismember them, and generally give the listener puzzles literally fictional narrative. For, both internally and externally, as we
to solve. shall see in Chapter 8, - usic is re etitive to a ver high_degree.
----...
Furthermore, the standard musical forms or patterns involve Musical 'plots'- and they are 'plots' in an attenuated sense only-
the recurrence of themes at various places. It is the experienced repeat themselves in a way, and to an extent, that would be intolera-
listener's task to recognize when the themes occur, and to orient ble in narrative structure (as will become apparent). The reason we
herself within the musical forms or patterns. Finding one's way in a enjoy this repetition, at least to a point, is not altogether clear. What
musical form is part of the hide-and -seek game, and gives part of the is clear is that, because music is pattern without content, the repeti-
satisfaction one derives from such music, and from such musical tion plays the same role in music as it does in abstract visual pat-
listening. terns. Indeed, as should be plain, you couldn't have pattern without ;{<'
We can now put together the two processes of musical listening, repetition. That is what pattern is.
the hypothesis ~me, and the game ofhide and seek, into a plausible I have spoken, above , of the hypothesis game and the hide-and-
account of what .:;,e enjoy in our encounters with absolute music seek game in musical 'plots.' However, if the hypothesis game is
(and music with texts as well). What both of these games suggest is endemic both to fictional narrative and to musical 'plots,' the hide-
Kind of puzzle play, g mch like, as I suggested earlier, the kind of and-seekgame seems more musical than literary, just because it is so
thing that goes on ;,hen we take in a fictional narrative, whether much a function of design repetition. The seeking and finding of
read (as in a novel) or seen (as in plays and movies). In a story we are themes, which plays such an important part in the musical experi-
held captive because we want to know what is going to happen: how ence, does indeed play a part in the literary experience as well. The

78 - Formalism Formalism - 79
 recurrence of words, or phrases, or fiction al events of certain kinds, music that we are trying to understand. We are trying to under-
or philosophical points, or metaphors, certainly occurs in fictional stand what goes on when someone, whether or not a musically
narratives; and the seeking-out of such literary 'themes' is certainly trained someone, listens to music seriously, attentively, the way a
part of our enjoyment of at least the higher forms of fiction. lsut I serious composer intends and hopes. That person is attending to
i think such thematic structur:_plays a far greater role _in absolute musical sound events not with a mind completely blank and bereft
music than in literature just because there is no fictional 'content' of thought, nor a mind occupied with thoughts and problems for
in-;;bsolute music to organize its 'plots. ~And, indeed, when theme which the music may serve as a soothing background, b~d
recurrence does occur in a literary work to an unusual degree, the ~Eied with the music. A person with his or her mind so occupied
work is frequently said to have a 'musical' character on that account, is a person who, I think, can fairly be described as thinking about the
so closely are music and theme recurrence associated with one musical events to which he or she is attending.
another. The music, when seriously listened to, is what philosophers
In any event, whether with regard to fictional content or theme would call an 'intentional object' : that is to say, an object perceived
recurrence, to understand a fictional narrative is to understand what under certain descriptions. For example, you and I might both be
took place . To show you understand what took place you describe looking at a man. I believe the man to be a well-known actor. You
what took place. Is that also true with musical plots? I think so; but don't know him at all: he is just a tall, good-looking man to you. The
that requires some explanation. 'intentional object' of my gaze is 'a tall, good-looking man who is a
A person who understands a fictional narrative understands it well-known actor, famous for his Hamlet.' Your 'intentional object'
because he can put what he reads under the appropriate concepts. If is merely 'a tall, good-looking man.' We both see the 'same man';
a child should read Pride and Prejudice, he would understand some of but, depending upon what we know, or believe about the man, we
it, perhaps; but he would miss out on a great deal because, to put it see 'different men' ; we~different 'intentional objects.' I see an
bluntly, he wouldn't know what Jane Austen was talking about. For actor famous for his Hamlet; you just see a man.
large portions of the story, he literally wouldn't know what really is Music, when listened to seriously, as I have described above, is an
happening because he does not possess the concepts necessary for intentional object of the listener's attention. And what intentional
story comprehension. object it is will depend upon what beliefs the listener has about the
But what, exactly, does a musical listener understand? There is no music. In particular, it will depend to a large degree on what musical
fictional plot-just musical events. Well, it is the musical events that knowledge , and what listening experience, the listener brings to the
are understood, in the sense that the listener attends to those events; music. The more knowledge and e~erience one brings, the 'Jar er'
and, ifhe attends to those events, then he perceives them as happen- the intentional object will be: the more there will be to it; for the
ing in certain ways. more we know about the music , the more elaborate our description
Now many readers may think that, again, I am over-intellectual- of it will be, and the more elaborate our description, the more fea-
izing the listening experience, which is often thought of as more like tures, literally, the intentional object, the music , will possess for us to
a semi-conscious, dreamy reverie in which one is bathed, as it were, appreciate.
in sound. That, of course, is a way of listening to music (or, rather, a It begins to look, then- and I welcome the conclusion- that
way of not listening to it). But it is simply not the way of listening to increase in musical knowledge will tend towards increase in musical

So - Formalism Formalism - 81
 We already have in our possession the argument to suggest that
appreciation or enjoyment. The reason for this is that, since in-
technical knowledge of musical syntax and structure will tend to
xµ= rease in musical knowledge enlarges the intentional object of mus-
increase our musical enjoyment. For what it gives us is an increased
ical appreciation, it, quite simply, gives us more to appreciate or
capacity for describing the intentional object of musical appreci-
enjoy. Furthermore, this view of the matter helps us to understand
ation; and what that gives us is an enlarged intentional object of mus-
another aspect of the musical experience that some people find
ical appreciation. The ability to describe music in music-theoretical
puzzling: the role , in musical appreciation or enjoyment, of what is
terms provides us with tools for distinguishing, in the musical
called 'music theory.'
object, events that are closed to the listener without such tools.
'Music theory' is not 'theory' in the sense in which Darwin's
Again, this is not to say that a rich appreciation of music cannot
theory of evolution, or Einstein's theory of relativity, are 'theories.'
be achieved by those lacking knowledge of music theory. But nor
It is not, in other words, a 'theory' in the sense of some deep ex-
should we shy away, out of some kind of' democratic' scruples, from
v planation of how things in nature work. It is, rather, an elaborate
\ .,. ,.i.. .. ~
'f. , ' \ • ~ \. .». technical description of musical events that does not seem to have
acknowledging that not all music is equally accessible to the naive
and the learned:.....Large portions of the classical repertory are greatly
*
1
' I an analogue in any of the other arts:-And it has been a matter of
enhanced by music-theoretic knowledge, even while accessible, to
contention, among music theorists and philosophers, as to how,
some degree, to all. If that is the bad news, the good news is that
or whether, music theory can play any part in musical appreciation
music theory can be learned by anyone with an ear for music (and
or enjoyment. I think that it does play a part, and that the way of
don't let the experts tell you anything different). Anyone who enjoys,
looking at musical listening I have outlined above tells us how and
who appreciates, classical music, or any music, for that matter, can
wh.
acquire music-theoretical knowledge, if he or she is of a mind to do
Now one conclusion we certainly want to avoid is that knowledge
it. In that sense there is nothing 'elitist' about knowing the basics of
of music theory is a requirement for a rich appreciation of musis.iVast
musical grammar. Anyone who wants to can be in on the secret. If
numbers of people, who comprise the audience for classical music,
you don't want to, well, of course, that is your own business. If that
have no such technical knowledge; and it is hard to believe that such
is aesthetic 'elitism,' then I am all for it.
people would devote the time and treasure they do to an art form
I have, th~n, to ~~itulate, presented absolute music in the
that afforded them little satisfaction.
But, on the other hand, I think we want to avoid, too, the (to me)
form of two games : the hypothesis game, which is essentially the 1\ '4
information theorist's formalism, and the hide-and-seek game,
equally unwelcome conclusion that acquiring the technical know-
which, I presume, is part of everyone's formalismj At this point,
ledge of music constituted by music theory should not contribute to
though, the reader may be beginning to wonder about how far this
an increase in musical enjoyment. That has not been my experience,
really goes in explaining what we enjoy in music. How, why, are these
nor that of others I know. There is a tendency in our democratic-
games enjoyable?
minded society to be wary of an 'elite' cadre of aesthetes who pos-
I confess that I cannot answer this question. But maybe it is not
sess secrets that open to them and close to us the higher forms of art
really a philosopher's task to answer it. After all, he can only go so
and culture . We should not allow this inbred distaste for an inherit-
far; he must, eventually, reach something that he can but ask the
ed aristocracy to cause us to bring musical appreciation down to the
reader to take for granted or accept' on faith.' Here is what I mean.
level of the uninformed.

Formalism - 83
82 - Formalism
 I have posed the question: What do we enjoy or appreciate in relevant to its appreciation; whereas there are, as well, in our appre-
absolute music. And I have answered: We enjoy musical 'plots,' in ciation of music, elements of pure sensual beauty- tone colors,
something like the way we enjoy fictional stories, except, of course, individual chord qualities, chord progressions and modulations,
that the musical 'plots' are 'merely' sequences of musical sound and so on- that appeal to us as well. Second, I have said nothing
events, not stories about fictional events. Furthermore, I have tried at all about the concept of beauty itself. Surely it matters to us
to spell out two ways-not necessarily the only ways-in which whether the music we hear is beautiful or not: we take pleasure in,
we interact with musical 'plots,' as we do with fictions : they are appreciate, music to the extent that it is beautiful or, more gener-
'games'; the game of hypothesis and the game of hide and seek ally, musically 'successful' to a rugh degree. How does the concept
(although the latter is more a musical game than a literary one). of the beautiful fit into the formalist creed?
But, if you accept tills argument, then, really, you already have As for the sensual elements of music, there is little one can say
a kind of answer to your question. You have brought with you to that is not just plainly obvious. Musical form · realizeclinhea.rf!
these proceedings the belief that games are inherently enjoyable to s.mmds.. These sounds are produced by instruments constructed
human beings: they are paradigm instances of what humans enjoy. to produce as beautiful a tone as possible, in their characteristic
So, if you accept that the games of hypothesis and hide and seek are timbres, and are played by performers who are (one hopes) trained
an important part of what goes on in our appreciation of absolute to elicit from their instruments as beautiful a tone as possible.
music, you have learned why, to that extent, listening to absolute Music that is written for groups of instruments is•constructed in
music is enjoyable: it consists in part in these games, and games, gen- ways that make use of the distinctive timbres of the different instru-
erally, are enjoyable to us. One way to satisfy someone's curiosity ments in sensually beautiful ways. Music written for a single in-
about why Sis pis to show that person that Sis q, and that, as you have strument exploits, as beautifully as possible, the distinctive sounds it
always known, all p's are q's. makes in its various registers.
Now, of course, this does not mean you are unjustified in want- The beauty of chords, chord progressions, modulations, and
ing to know why p's are q's. You are not unjustified in wondering other such 'individual' elements of the musical fabric of course
why games of the kind we are talking about are enjoyable to human begin to have 'form': they certainly have 'parts.' Nevertheless, they
beings. It is a legitimate question. But it goes beyond what the remain, in the big picture, elements out of which musical form
philosopher of music can, or is obliged to, explain. Perhaps it goes is constructed. Of course their beauty is not a 'natural beauty,' a
beyond even what the philosopher of anything can or is obliged to natural property, like the beauty of a sparkling gem, or a shiny gold
explain. Perhaps we now require the psychologist or biologist or nugget, any more than the beauty of a whole symphony is. Som
both. The philosopher of music, however, has taken you as far as he large part _of their beauty is a cultural artifact: the famous chord
can. in Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, which succeeding generations have
At this point we have a pretty good idea about what shape my found so fascinatingly beautiful, would have been an ugly disson-
musical formalism takes. But so far two rather important topics ance to the eighteenth-century ear.
have been avoided. First of all, it will be recalled that I thought Furthermore, the beauty of individual chords, chord progres-
'formalism' an ill-chosen term for my (and others') view, because sions, or modulations is frequently owed to how they are situated in
it apparently singled out music's formal elements as the only ones larger musical areas: how they 'emerge' from the forms of wruch

84 ~ Formalism Formalism ~ 85
the are the elem ts. Nevertheless, the beauty of these elements is,
such features will assure its beauty. That no one can say with good
more or less, like the 'natural beauty' of gems and precious metals in reason,_J
that they are experienced, within musical structure, as its sensually
What more is there to say about the outlines of musical formal-
beautiful elements, simply qualities like the beauties of colors.
ism? The attentive reader will , no doubt, have noticed that, so far,
Well, there it is. Beauty. Beauty. Beauty. Music has sensual beauty;
nothing has been said about the emotive properties of music in this
and its forms are realized in that beauty. But what makes the sounds
regard. Yet, as we have seen, there is general consensus, and I share
of the various instru;:;;-~ts of music beautiful? What makes the
in it, that there are emotive properties in music, which we perceive
sounds of individual chords, chord progressions, and modulations
there when we listen to it. Are these emotive properties to play no
beautiful? And what makes musical compositions realized in those
part at all in the musical formalist's account of the musical listening
beautiful sounds beautiful? Surely the philosopher of music has not
experience? Some have thought so. I do not. I promised at the end
completed his task until he has answered those questions.
of Chapter 3 to return to the question of how the garden-variety
Here, I think, the philosopher of music cannot beg off and say:
emotions, in the music, function there, after I had laid the nec-
The question of musical beauty is someone else's question, not
essary foundations of musical formalism. I have now laid these
mine. Who else's question could it be? It is a philosophical question if
fo undations. So I can delay no longer in keeping my promise. To
ever there was one; and it is clearly the philosopher of music who
the musical emotions, in the following chapter, we again direct
should answer it.
our attention, and to some other relevant things as well.
Nevertheless, I shall not try to answer the question of what con-
stitutes musical beauty or 'success.' It just may be an unanswerable
question. In any event, I cannot answer it, nor do I know anyone else
who has, or can. For, if you mean by answering it, giving some set
of properties that, together, are necessary for any music's being
beautiful, and being sufficient for its being beautiful, I think Gurney
was quite right in being skeptical about there being such (as I think
he was).
The fact that we despair of an answer, in terms of necessary
and sufficient conditions, to the question, What is musical beauty?,
should not, however, paralyze us into dumbness about saying what,
in particular cases, contributes to the beauty of a musical composi-
tion, or a part thereof, as I think it did Gurney. Indeed, everything
we have so far seen, about what is enjoyable in musical form and
material, is an answer to what, in particular cases, may contribute
to musical beauty. And everything that is to come will contribute
as well.What we must avoid concluding is that no music can be
beautiful without such features as I have discussed, or that having

86 - Formalism
Formalism - 87
 fairly clear. Both of them saw the battle lines cleanly drawn between
the traditional theory, which they opposed, that the whole of
music's beauty, or artistic significance, lies in its emotive properties,
however they might be conceived, and their own theory, which
CHAPTER 6 denied this. It must have seemed to them, then, that it was all or
nothing: either emotive properties did play a role in the musical
work of art, or they did not. If their view, formalism, was right- if
Enhanced Formalism the beauty or artistic significance of music lay in its forms alone-
then there was no room, in formalism, for the emotions. So 'form-
alism' became synonymous with the exclusion of emotions from
the musical experience. If you were a friend of formalism, you were
an enemy to the emotions.
The early formalistic creed, of Hanslick and Gurney, was, fur-
thermore, reinforced in its rejection of the emotions in music by, as
we have seen, a very limited choice of options for how music might
f1.raditional formalism-the formalism of Hanslick, Gurney, and be describable in emotive terms. The possibilities on offer were that
their followers-has always been associated with the denial that music was sad, say, in a dis ositional sense: it had the property of
music can be described in emotive terms:_JHanslick, as we have making listeners sad; or that music was sad in a re res tational
seen, denied flat out that music could embody the garden-variety way: it represented sadness the way a painting represents flowers or
emotions, in the only two possible ways he could envision: as dis- fruits. What was not contemplated was the possibility that music is
positional properties of the music to arouse the emotions, or as sad in virtue of possessing sadness as a heard property, the way a bil-
representations of the emotions. liard ball possesses roundness and redness as seen properties. But,
Gurney may have been somewhat more liberal; but his form- once the possibility of emotive properties as heard properties of the
alism, in the end, amounted to the same thing as Hanslick's as music is conceived of, then it immediately becomes apparent that
regards any possible role for the garden-variety emotions in musical emotive descriptions of music are compatible with 'formalism,'
aesthetics. For, although he did allow that music could be sad, happy, broadly conceived as the doctrine, outlined in the previous chapter,
and so forth, he thought this was completely irrelevant to the aes- that music is a structure of sound events without semantic or repres-
thetic structure. In other words, the fact that a passage of music entational content. For, if emotive properties like sadness are heard
might be sad had no more to do with its beauty, or other relevant properties of the music, they are just properties of the musical struc-
aesthetic features , than the fact that a peach is fuzzy has anything to ture, and to say that a passage of music is sad, or cheerful, is no more
do with its taste. to describe it in semantic or representational terms than to describe
The explanation for the total exclusion of emotive properties it as turbulent or tranquil. A tranquil passage of music does not rep-
from music in the early formalist creeds ofHanslick and Gurney is resent tranquility or mean 'tranquil.' It simply is tranquil. And the

Enhanced Formalism - 89
same is true of a passage of music that is melancholy. It does not structure of the piece, in trying to explain why the music is cheerful
mean 'melancholy' or represent melancholy. It just is melancholy, in one place and melancholy in the next? I think that is the right thing
and that ends the matter. to say. However, to be convincing, that answer needs some spelling
Now there are those who argue that, if a musical passage is out.
describable in emotive terms, that, ipso facto, implies that the music Before one even gets to talking about the more elaborate func-
has at least minimal 'content.' I shall deal with this claim later in the tions in syntax and structure the emotive qualities of music might
chapter. But for now I will take it that formalism broadly conceived perform, it would be helpful to point out that there are perfectly
is perfectly consistent with music's possessing heard emotive prop- simple and obvious functions that can be ascribed to them as well-
erties. This view has been aptly characterized by the philosopher functions they share with many other heard properties of music, or
Philip Alperson as ~anced fo~sm 'IAnd that is how I shall seen properties of the visual arts. I take it as a truism that emotive
refer to it on these pages. properties of music, like other of its artistically relevant properties,
The task at hand now is to explain what role or roles emotive are inherently interesting properties. That is to say, they are prop-
properties might play in musical structure. They cannot, at least in erties of music that add to its aesthetic character, and are inherently
many important cases, just be there, for no reason at all. pleasurable to experience. But, furthermore, like other heard, aes-
When emotive properties of music were thought of as either dis- thetic properties of music, they help constitute the sonic pattern.
positional or representational, their reason for being present was Patterns, whether sonic or visual, are a matter of repetition and con-
fairly straightforward. If sad music aroused sadness, that was the trast. Thus, if, in observing a visual pattern, a fine Persian rug, for
way music moved us emotionally; and being emotionally moved by example, yo u ask, Why is this square figure just here?, I might reply,
works of art is an inherently good thing. Or, if sad music represented Because this rug is a pattern of squares and ovals, and a square is
sadness, then there was no problem either, because representation what is required here if the pattern is to be consistent. But why, you
in art is an inherently good thing: naturally pleasing to human then ask, is it a red square?, and my reply then might be, Well, it is for
beings, according to Aristotle. lBut, if emotive properties of music contrast, since the oval next to it in the pattern is black.
are neither dispositional nor representational, just heard properties, In other words, the emotive properties of music, like such other
what are they doing? There has to be an aesthetic or artistic reason properties as turbulence, or tranquility, or its being major at one
why' there is a major chord of a certain kind in this measure of a point, minor at another, or simply that it has one kind of melody
symphony, and a diminished chord of a certain kind in the next:.J here, and another kind next, can be explained, initially, in terms of
And appeal to musical 'syntax' and the overall structure of musical the simplest facts of musical structure: that is, sonic patterns, and
works is the approved method for explicating it. What, though, do that patterns consist in repetition and contrast. And the appeal to
we appeal to in trying to explicate why there is a cheerful passage of repetition and contrast as explanations for why a musical work is of
music followed by a melancholy one, if not to representation or a certain character here, another there, is an appeal valid for any
arousal? musical qualities, including, of course, emotive ones.
Why not say that the emotive properties of music play the same Furthermore, it bears mentioning that part of the human appeal
kind of role as the chords and motives and melodies? Why not say of absolute music, as a pure abstract art of pattern, is its emot-
that what we should do is appeal to musical 'syntax' and the overall ive properties. I do not suggest, by any means, that abstract visual

90 ~ Enhanced Formalism Enhanced Formalism ~ 91

patterns cannot possess emotive properties as well, abstract expres- patterns and contrast, and other 'surface' features, but in terms of
1
sionism being a recent and impressive case in point. But it may in fact musical syntax and deeper structure as well. How this might be
be, for reasons I do not fully understand, that sonic patterns, when done, I hasten to add, is not by any means clear, at present. Indeed,
they are music, are richer in emotive properties than abstract visual as a research project, in my own work, it has only just begun. Never-
patterns as a rule are}f that is so, it may make them particularly theless, I think I can give the reader at least a vague idea of what a
appealing to the human animal, which is, for better or worse, an 'syntactical' explanation for the musical function of emotive prop-
emotional animal. Absolute music , even though it is a pure, abstract, erties might look like.
'formal' art fo rm , is not a 'cold' fo rmalism. It has human 'warmth,' One of the m ost prominent and most often written about 'syn-
because it has human emotions as a perceptual part of its structure. tactic' features of the kind of music we are concerned with is what is
It needs remarking as well that the presence of emotive qualities usually described as 'resolution.' In very general terms, the music
in music som etimes requires no explanation at all, because the com- of which we speak moves from moments of rest, to moments of
position in which they occur is working out musical structure that tension, or instability, and then resolves tension or instability into
simply has nothing to do with the emotive properties it possesses. stability or rest.
For example, a composer may write a musical composition pre- More specifically, certain chords are active chords, and must
dominantly in major keys, and with bright, brisk melodies, that w ill be 'resolved' into stable chords that provide resting points, either
be, of necessity, because of that, cheerful and exuberant. Yet the temporary or permanent. Such resolutions from tension to rest are
composer may have had entirely other things on her mind than called 'cadences.' They are either the temporary resting places of
these expressive properties. She is interested in writing a piece that musical movements, sometimes called 'half-cadences,' if they occur
exhibits certain structures and patterns involvingjust these keys and during the course of the movements, or they are permanent resting
m elodies. These structures and patterns have nothing to do with the places, when they occur at the ends. Frequently, what makes a chord
emotive tone of the piece, which simply occurs because the piece is 'active' is that it contains a dissonance; and the process ofits 'resolu-
written in major keys and with bright brisk melodies. The emotive tion' involves resolving the dissonance into a consonnance. But this
tone , so to speak, comes with the territory; comes along for the ride. needn't always be the case. Thus, a G-major chord, the triad G- B- 0 ,
But it plays no particular part in the proceedings, and hence need has no dissonance in it, nor does the C-major chord, the triad
not be noted or explained in an analysis of the piece, and what is C-E- G. In the key of C major, however, the G-major chord per-
musically going on in it. forms an active syntactical function : the G-major chord resolves to
But, needless to say, in an abundance of music in which expressive the C-major chord; and when it does, it goes from tension to rest,
properties occur, they do play an important structural role. And, even though it does not go from dissonance to consonance but from
although the simple function of making patterns and providing con- consonance to consonance.
trasts goes some way towards explaining, in such cases, why emo- If you add F to the G-major chord, you do get a dissonance: the F
tive properties are where they are, there is frequently more to be said with the G. (Play those two notes alone on the piano and you will
for their presence and particular place in a musical composition. hear it.) This is known as a 'seventh' chord, because the added F
As I suggested just now, it is tempting to try to understand the is the seventh note up from G. This chord, as well, by virtue of the
role of emotive properties of absolute music in terms not only of dissonant F- G is even a more active chord, in C major, than the plain

92 - Enhanced Formalism Enhanced Formalism - 93

 G-major triad, and the resolution to the C-major chord that much I
stone, but is historically relative. Thus, there was a time when a
more a 'resolution': a greater release of tension. musical composition could not come to rest on a chord with a third
You can hear how the resolution from dissonance to consonance in it: the third was considered a dissonance. There was a time when
works, syntactically, with even greater clarity, in the following mus- a musical composition could not come to rest on a minor third: the
ical commonplace that has been employed over the centuries in the minor third was a dissonance. And the kinds of chords that are
combining of two or more melodies together. I will write it out in chords of rest, of complete closure, in our own times would have
musical notation for those who can read and play it. been considered inappropriate as closing chords in the nineteenth
century. Musical closure is a syntactic concept, and syntax in music, &}
as in na .-- anguages~ changes with time. -
If one takes, for example, the most popular large musical form,
Notice that the passage begins at rest, with the consonance C- E. the symphony, one can, in the paradigm cases, the great symphonic
The top melody then moves down to 0, while the lower melody works of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, see clearly (and
remains on C, thus producing a dissonance. (This is called a 'suspen- ' hear clearly), from the smallest musical units, to the large thematic
sion' because the C is held over the bar line to the following meas- groups of the individual movements, to the overall direction of the
ure. ) The dissonance is resolved in the second measure, but only individual movements, to the whole four-movement work, a pro-
comes to a partial close (with another suspension) onto the G-major cess that goes from rest to tension to rest. It is, if you will, the over-
chord. There is no dissonance now, but, as we saw, the G-major arching syntactical figure that all other syntactical figures serve.
chord is an active chord in C major, and naturally calls for a final reso- Now a brief comment must be made at this point about what
lution to the C-major chord in the fourth measure. Thus these four exactly we are experiencing when we experience the tension and
measures give us a progress from rest to tension to partial resolution resolution in music of which I have just now been speaking. Some
to full resolution. It is a very common musical technique: indeed a people would want to say that what is happening is that we describe
musical cliche..,But within its tiny dimensions it provides an example moments of music as moments of tension when the music makes us
of the most pervasive structural-syntactic feature of Western art feel tense, and we describe moments in music as moments of reso-
music since, I would guess, the very beginnings of musical notation lution or release when our tensions, which the music has excited,
in the Middle Ages. Western art music, in its small, medium, and the music now dissipates, or, as the musical term would suggest,
large-scale aspects, is a process of movement from rest, to tension 'resolves.'
of varying degrees, to rest of varying degrees, to a final stability or I myself don't like this way of describing things at all. It seems to
closure. And, if a composition departs from this model-if a ~­ me far more congruent with my own musical experience to say that
poser writes tensionless music, or music that avoids closure, 'rest- the tension and resolution about which I have been speaking are not
less' music-part of its effect lies, of course, in its being projected tension and resolution experienced in me as emotional episodes in
against a background of the enduring tradition of music in the my own psychological 'biography,' but, rather, things that are hap-
~en,,,iuu ·l°eiea,,,t: 111uuc0
1
pening in the music, and that I hear happening there. In other
As well, it mustbe- cautioned that what constitutes a 'restful' words, like the garden-variety emotions, they are in the music, not
chord, a chord on which it is permissible to close, is not written in in the listener. Not only does this way of speaking seem better to

94 - Enhanced Formalism Enhanced Formalism - 95

represent what I perceive I am experiencing. As well, the other way 'feeling tense' and leaves only the empty husk behind. Everyone
of speaking seems to me implausible. Here is why. knows the difference between expecting the dentist's forceps, or
The feeling of tension is very pronounced and usually distressing. that cadenza, bristling with difficulties, that you must play before a
One feels tense when one is expecting something unpleasant to hostile audience of New York critics, and expecting your best friend
happen: the dentist is preparing to extract a tooth . Or one feels or the delivery boy with the groceries. In the former case you are in
tense when one is about to do something fraught with difficulty and a tense state, a state of anxiety, in the latter a state of calm anticipa-
the threat of failure: before making a speech or playing a concerto. tion. If the tough customer insists that all are tension states just by
It seems doubtful that hearing tension in music is anything like that. virtue of all being expectation states, he has simply legislated a
But, it may be replied to this, you have maintained in the previous change in language, but has changed our concept of tension not one
chapter that one of the principal ways of attending to absolute bit. We will just have to find a new word for our old concept: philos-
music, the hypothesis game, is a process of arousing expectations and ophy will not be advanced; rather, comm uni ca ti on will be impeded.
having them fulfilled or frustrated. lf one feels tension in expecta- So I will rest content with my way of speaking about tension and
tion of the dentist's forceps, or the giving of a speech, then doesn't resolution, in which not all expectations are productive of tension in
one also feel tension in expectation of the melody going this way, or the one expecting, musical expectations being a case in point. And
the dissonance resolving that way? They are all cases of expectation, I will rest content too with my belief that th_e_b~st way to view
after all. And, if tension is aroused by the non-musical expectations, mu ical tension and r e~, or resol~, is, like the garden-variety
why not by the musical ones as well? What's the difference? • emotions,'!§ b_eiDg hears!._events in the music. That being said, it now
I think the answer is, quite simply; that not all expectations arouse is time to see just how the garden-variety emotions in the music
tension: only those where the outcome might be such where ten- might play a part in the tension-resolution syntax. As we shall see,
sion would be the normal, appropriate response. I feel tense in the the syntax of tension and resolution provides rich possibilities for
dentist's chair, or waiting to go on stage at my Carnegie Hall debut,
but not when expecting a visit from my best friend or a delivery of
groceries. And there doesn't seem to be anything about musical
- the emotions in music to play a structural role. I do not believe it
is the only role they play But it will be something of an accomplish-
ment, and as much as I can hope to do here, at least to show how
expectations that would cause tension in the listener, at least the they function in the syntax of tension and release . As I said earlier,
normal listener under normal circumstances. (Someone who was this is not a complete theory but an ongoing project in progress.
made tense by every expectation would surely require the care of a The first thing to notice is that the terms 'tension,' 'release,' and
therapist or a heavy dose of valium.) 'resolution' themselves refer to psychological states that could at
Of course, a particularly persistent customer might go right on to least broadly speaking be described as garden-variety emotions,
insist that it is in the very nature of every expectation to be product- along with ones like happiness, melancholy, love, anger, and the like.
ive of at least some degree of tension, no matter how minimal. He They are, after all, common enough, and, most would agree, fall
might argue: to be in a state of expectation is ipso facto to be in a state within the general category of the emotional. Thus it would be no
of tension. I have no particular objection to someone speaking surprise that, when tension, release, resolution occur in musical
in this way, just so long as it is recognized that it is a strange way works, the other garden-variety emotions are involved as well. After
of speaking that squeezes every bit of juice out of the concept of all, when tension, release , and resolution occur as mental states in

96 - Enhanced Formalism Enhanced Formalism - 97

human beings, the garden-variety emotions occur along with them. consequence, the movement from dark to bright emotive tone will
I am angry, and my anger 'resolves' into forgiveness. Or I have an rend to be aJHO.\lemenr, i~ofitself from tension to rest.
enormous reservoir of pent-up anger and it is 'released' in an out- What begins to become apparent, then, is that, in the larger ele-
burst of abusive language. And so on. ments of tonal structure, the alternation of somber and bright emo-
A second very important point to notice, or, rather, to remember, tive tone colors is an alternation between tension and rest, just as
is the connection of the garden-variety em otions in music to the is the alternations of dissonance with consonance, or active chords
distinction between major and minor tonalities: in particular, with stable ones. In other words, the emotions in the music are, in
the major mode with cheerful, light emotions, the minor with the this respect, performing a syntactical function : the most central
darker, melancholy ones. For the remainder of this discussion I will one in Western art music, which is to say, the syntax of tension anq
concentrate on the major- minor contrast as it plays out in the lution.
r
cheerful-somber one. What I have been trying to show, in these reflections, is that the
Recall that when I talked about the melancholy quality of the emotive properties of music, which is to say, absolute music- music
minor triad, I observed that, for a long period of its history, it was with words and dramatic setting is quite another matter-have a
considered a dissonant chord. Thus the ending of a composition purely structural role to play in the musical works in which they
in the minor key was frequently on a maj or chord. For example, a OCCut:j But, it is sometimes objected, as soon as one has allowed

piece in the key of C minor would end on a C major chord rather music to be described in emotive terms, one has, ipso facto, gone
than a C minor one. This was felt to be a more complete, more final beyond musical formalism , because, if music is somber, say, or
resolution; and I think the feeling still persists, at least to some melancholy, or cheerful, then it has at least minimal semantic con-
degree. tent; and musical formalism denies semantic content absolutely.
But note , too, that, since the association between major and What are the grounds for this claim? And are they justified?
cheerful, minor and somber, there is an other big difference between It appears that the reasoning goes something like this. The most
resolution to the major and resolution to the minor. A resolution to basic condition for semantic content is 'reference' : that is to say, the
the m ajor is an emotive resolution from dark to light: from a somber function of pointing, so to speak, to something that the referring
emotive tone to a cheerful one . But, from the emotive point of view, term or expression is supposed to denote. Nouns like 'dog' or
the ~esolution, in a minor key, to the minor close, would be no reso- 'house' are said to denote, or refer to, those things: dogs and houses.
lution at all. Nor would there be any emotive resolution, in a major Thereby they have a semantic dimension: they have content; they
key, to a major resolution. are 'about' ; they mean. But, so the reasoning goes, if music is melan-
It is, I think, reasonable to suppose that the resolution in music choly, or cheerful, it must, ipso facto, have reference to, denote,
fro m the darker to the lighter em otions would be a stronger resolu- melancholy and cheerfulness. So formalism 'enhanced' with emo-
tion, a m ore restful, decisive close, than merely a resolution from tive properties is formalism no longer, properly so-called. Music that
dissonance to consonance or from an active chord to a stable one. is melancholy must refer to melancholy; cheerful music must
G"n other words, the resolution of minor to major, which is a firmer denote cheerfulness. And so semantic content, at least of a minimal
resolution than minor to minor, is even more decisive becau se it is kind, has insidiously infiltrated the musical structure through emot-
also a resolution from dark emotive tone to ligh:__f urthermore, by ive reference.

98 - Enhanced Formalism Enhanced Formalism - 99

 I do not find this argument at all persuasive. Even if it is good, it then its only significant interest remains in just those non-semantic
yields, it seems to me, a trivial conclusion. features that enhanced formalism recognizes: those of formal struc-
First of all, there are all sorts of other properties besides the emot- ture, syntax, and sensuous appeal.
ive ones that we ascribe to music, with terms drawn from everyday I have presented, in the preceding pages, a version of what I have
life. We say that music, like rivers, can be turbulent or tranquil. We been calling ' enhanced formalism': the doctrine that absolute music
say that music, like food, can be sweet or, like children, can be rau- is a sound structure without semantic or representational content,
cous. Does this mean that turbulent music must, ipso facto, be refer- but, nevertheless, a sound structure that sometimes importantly
ring to turbulence, tranquil music to tranquility, and so on? That possesses the garden-variety emotions as heard qualities of that
seems to me to be absurd. Why should it be the case that, if some- structure-an enhancement, in effect, of formalism as it has tradi-
thing can be described in these terms, it must denote the properties tionally been understood. I have, furthermore, tried to defend
named? Some things do indeed refer to some of the properties they enhanced formalism against the charge that, in allowing absolute
possess. A boot, for example, hung outside a shop to indicate boots music to be describable in emotive terms, I have gone beyond the
are sold inside has properties that might be thought to denote those bounds offormalism properly so-called, because, if music is describ-
properties. And ' short' is a short word denoting shortness. But there able in emotive terms, then it must, ipso facto, denote emotions, be
seems no good reason to think that properties of music serve such a 'about' them, and, by consequence, have semantic content.
function. The turbulence of passages in Beethoven's symphonies no There are, however, other objections to the doctrine of formalism
more denotes turbulence than does the turbulence of the Colorado that adduce characteristics of so-called absolute music supposed to
River. But suppose, anyway, that we accept the claim that music prove either that it isn't ' absolute ,' or that, in any event, it cannot be
refers to its phenomenal properties: if it is melancholy, it denotes understood on purely formalist assumptions, even when' enhanced'
that property, likewise for its turbulence or tranquility or sweetness with emotive properties. I want to conclude this chapter by con-
or raucousness. What has been accomplished? sidering three such objections. I shall refer to them, respectively, as
Some may answer: If it refers to these properties, then music is 'historicist factors, ' 'functional factors,' and factors f 'social setting.'
'about' them; and if it is about them, it has semantic content. So It is sometimes said that formalism is an 'ahistorical' doctrine
enhanced formalism is no longer formalism properly so-called. and, therefore, cannot be true. For absolute music, so the argument
Whatever victory this conclusion might be for the opponents of continues, like all other arts, is embedded in its history, and its his-
formalism, it seems to me a hollow one. For the absolutely minimal tory imparts important properties to it. Whereas, so it is claimed,
sense of 'aboutness' that mere reference accomplishes will hardly formalism is 'timeless.' The formal properties of music, so it is said,
work anyone's passage from enhanced formalism to a musical at least as the formalist construes them, are independent ofhistorical
semantics: it will get you only from enhanced formalism in letter incursions. A triangle, after all, is a triangle, then, now, and forever.
and spirit to a musical semantics in letter, not spirit, and an enhanced Its concept is eternal and unchanging. So, if the formal properties of
formalism, still, in spirit. That is because, in order for music to be music, its forms, are like geometrical forms such as the triangle or
semantically interesting, semantically significant as an art form, it circle, then they too are 'timeless' entities. They exist 'outside his-
must not only refer but say something interesting and significant tory,' recognized by you, me, and an ancient Greek alike for what they
about what it denotes. If it cannot do that- which indeed it cannot- are. And, if that is so, like geometry, music can be appreciated in a

100 ~ Enhanced Formalism Enhanced Formalism ~ 101

 completely ahistorical way. You needn't, for example, have any agree. It is the stock in trade, for example, of those who write pro-
notion at all of the historical relationship of Haydn's, Mozart's, and gram notes for classical music concerts, to try to get listeners to hear
Beethoven's symphonies fully to appreciate them. You needn't even the innovative and 'original' features of the works that are to be
know that Haydn came before Brahms. But that surely is absurd, so played as part of their listening experience. Be that as it may, how-
the critic of formalism concludes.lit is obvious that you can't fully ever, there is no need for us toputallofour historical eggs in that one
appreciate music, or any other art, without knowledge of its histor- basket. There are ways in which musical form is historically con-
ical background and place. If formalism implies that you can, which tingent in the perfectly straightforward sense that the form of the
it does seem to do, then formalism must be false.:.J composition is 'formally' different when listened to historically as
The problem with this argument is that musical formalism is in opposed to 'ahistorically,' or, to put it more precisely, when listened
no way committed to construing musical form (or any of the other to in the manner of its contemporaries, as opposed to the way our
artistically significant features of musical structure, for that matter) listening habits of the past 300 years would dictate. Here is one such
ahistorically. On the contrary, any sensible formalist will say that example.
one big difference between music and geometry is that geometrical The British musicologist Margaret Bent, among others, has
forms are ahistorical and musical forms are not. What the form of a pointed out that it is very easy to 'mishear' certain tonal events in
musical work is is in part a function of its place in the history of Med\eval music as instances of the most common and basic musical
music. There must be many aspects of musical form that are histor- event in our modern harmonic system. This is the progression, in
ically determined. I will mention two. the key of C major, for example, from the active chord, G-B-D, to
To begin with the obvious, a formal structure may exhibit art- the chord of rest, C-E-G. The chord, G-B-D is called the 'domin-
historical features. Thus, many of Beethoven's piano sonatas have ant' chord of C major, the chord C-E-G the 'tonic' chord. And the
their first movements in clearly recognizable 'sonata form': the progression from dominant to tonic is the very foundation of all our
same form exploited to such perfection previously by Haydn and listening habits in the modern tonal system. In particular, the
Mozart. But in numerous ways, especially in key__st:r.ua;u.re, they progression from dominant to tonic is the closure event in the
are innovative. And you cannot perceive this innovative quality with- major- minor harmonic system. It is always the progression from
out perceiving them in their historical context, as both emulations tension to resolution, from active to restful. It is the most common
of and artistic responses to the sonata movements of his great musical ' ending.' To remind yourself how it sounds, play the follow-
predecessors. ing two chords at the piano.
Now philosophers of art have argued over the years about

[
whether these art-historical features of which I have just now been
speaking are truly features of works of art, and appreciated as such,
~· ~
tJ ~

or whether they are, rather, features of art history and, therefore, to -.

be appreciated and understood as historical events rather than aes-
thetic properties. I myself gravitate towards the former view of the Now in music of the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance , there
matter, and, for what it is worth, the people who write about music, are musical events that sound to us , because we live in the historical
and the other arts, in a more or less popular vein, seem implicitly to period of the major- minor tonal system, exactly like the dominant

rn2 ~ Enhanced Formalism

Enhanced Formalism ~ rn3
r
tonic cadential figure: the moving from tension to rest. But in the functions in addition to the common one of providing objects for
syntax of that historical period, they perform an entirely different aesthetic contemplation (which it certainly must have had as well).
function: in particular, they perform a continuing function rather It provided background for social events, it was danced to, it formed
than a cadential one from tension to rest. So, if a musical composi- part of religious or ceremonial rituals, it was a teaching method for
tion is continuing rather than coming to rest at a certain point, then students, and many other things.
it possesses, quite literally, a different form, a different formal struc- But in the last half of the eighteenth century these various settings
ture from a piece, making exactly the same sounds, that is corning to and functions of instrumental music were more or less put into the
rest there. shade, though not, of course, completely replaced by one single
Consider, now, a piece of Medieval music, call it C, that we hear venue: the public performance space, which is to say, the concert
performed. At a particular place we hear a dominant- tonic cadence, hall. The ei~century invented t11P ~nblic concert.
but a Medieval audience would have heard a continuing passage. The concert hall, the aural version of the art museum (also an
They were hearing a piece with a different formal structure from the eighteenth-century invention), is a place for doing one thing: listen-
piece we are hearing. Furthermore, it is arguable that they were ing with rapt, aesthetic attention to (for the most part) absolute
hearing correctly, we not. However that may be, it is clear that the music. Music in this social setting is meant to perform but one func-
formal structure of C is different in the two cases. Musical form, it tion: to be the most interesting possible object for that rapt atten-
would seem, is as much a hostage to history as any other artistic tion. In this setting, all its other past social settings and functions
feature the historicist might pick. There is nothing about enhanced have been obliterated.
formalism implying that musical form is a timeless or ahistorical With this historical fact in hand, one can understand why some
thing. The historicist's argument against formalism, enhanced or might claim that at least a great deal of so-called pure instrumental
otherwise, comes to nothing. music is not pure at all: is not absolute music properly so-called. It
The two remaining objections to enhanced formalism stem from was never meant to be solely an 'aesthetic' object of pure contem-
what I called functionalist considerations and considerations of plation. It had various social settings and various functions within
social setting. And, since these two objections are closely related, those various settings. These settings and functions, so the argu-
and sometimes even mixed up with one another, I think it best to ment might continue, are a part of its artistic, musical fabric. And, if
treat them together. they are, then even enhanced formalism can't be a true account, at
To begin the discussion, it would be useful to make a few brief least of these works, which, after all, represent a substantial segment
historical remarks. These concern a radical change that seems to of the instrumental repertory. Instrumental music has a long his-
have taken place towards the end of the eighteenth century, in how tory before the initiation of the public concert space, after all.
we listen to music; and I will confine my remarks to pure instru- Now there is a good deal of truth in this combined social-
mental music, which is the crucial case. Before the change of which functiona1 critique of formalism. For both the social settings of music
I am speaking, instrumental music was listened to in a variety of before what might be called the 'great divide' between it and them,
social and institutional settings: in the home, in the manor house or as well as music's diverse functions in these pre-concert hall settings,
the palace, in the church, in ceremonies of state, in social functions, might be thought to impart to music before the great divide artistic
and so on. In these various settings, the music had various distinct properties that cannot be reasonably thought of as formalist ones.

104 - Enhanced Formalism Enhanced Formalism - 105

I
.1
The social setting itself might be thought of as, in many cases, part of function. However composers may have felt about this, it was a fact
the musical work of art: for example, the spectacle of a state cere- of their creative lives.
mony in which the music is embedded, or the church service of When, however, we take music composed before the great divide
which it is a part. out of its original settings and put it into the concert hall, we are,
Furthermore, functions themselves provide aesthetic satisfaction essentially, setting it up to be heard just as the music written espe-
in functional works of art. So dance music, for instance, might be cially for this venue: that is to say, with rapt aesthetic concentration
enjoyed and appreciated not merely in terms of its formal properties to the exclusion of all else. When it is thus attended to, some works
but for how well adapted it is for the dances it is meant to accom- will have a higher aesthetic payoff than others. But, regardless of its
pany. Thus in both of these respects-social setting and social original place and purpose, that payoff, in the modern setting, will,
function- music before the great divide has aesthetic, artistic prop- the formalist will claim, correctly, I think, have to be measured in
erties imparted to it that are not part of its formal structure as purely for malist terms: enhanced formalist terms, that is. That is
normally construed. precisely the point of the transfer fro m th e original place to the
These points are well taken, but should not be taken to prove too other.
much. First of all, if musical formalism is understood in its negative The question may well be raised with regard to the music com-
sense, as denying that pure instrumental music possesses semantic posed before the great divide as to whether it might have a higher
or representational content, then it is perfectly consistent with what overall aesthetic payoff if restored to its original settings. It is an alto-
we have been saying about instrumental music before the great gether fair and sensible question, and has been raised with increas-
divide. For neither its diverse social settings nor its diverse social ing frequency by proponents of'historically authentic' performance
functions impart to it either. Instrumental music before the great (of which I will have something to say in a later chapter). But there is
divide neither means nor represents its social settings or its functions. no universal, theoretically mandated answer to this question. Music
Indeed, it sounds like utter nonsense to assert that it does . that has much in its structure to be taken in and appreciated may
But what of the features that its settings and functions do impart prosper more in the concert hall than it ever did in its original set-
to instrumental music before the great divide? If they are not form- ting, where its function and setting would have interfered with the
alist features, even for enhanced formalism, and they do not seem to attitude of rapt aesthetic attention necessary for appreciating its
be, what does that say about formalism and about this music? Well complexities. On the other hand, a composition that does not pos-
there is no need for the formalist to start wringing his hands over the sess the wherewithal to sustain extended or deep aesthetic scrutiny
question. Nor, however, should it be brushed aside. The formalist might well take on, in its original setting, serving its originally
must take it seriously. intended function, an aesthetic interest far exceeding what it would
Music after the great divide was designed with the concert hall in excite in the concert hall. Such a composition would, clearly, be
mind. It was meant for a setting where its sole purpose is to be an a prime candidate for restoration to its native, pre-concert hall
object of rapt aesthetic attention. Music before the great divide was, habitat. (Although if it were true that Handel's coronation anthems
of course, also meant to be contemplated aesthetically for the pur- come off better at a coronation than in a concert performance, it
pose of musical appreciation and enjoyment, but, one presumes, in would still hardly make sense to wait for a coronation to perform
varying degrees, depending upon its particular social setting and them, since kings and queens frequently live a long time nowadays,

106 - Enhanced Formalism Enhanced Formalism - 107

 and, anyway, invitations to coronations are not easy for the average musical moments, deeply moved, emotionally aroused, to a signific-
guy to come by. ) ant degree by the music we hear. Furthermore, the arousal theory
Thus, the upshot of these considerations is that instrumental had a ready explanation for this. Music moves us by arousing in us
music composed before the great divide may well have aesthetic, or, the emotions it is expressive of: anger, fear, melancholy, joy, and so
if you will, musically significant properties that go beyond even on- the garden-variety emotions. Thus, the arousal theory has the
what enhanced formalism allows. But there is, on the other hand, no same explanation for what makes music expressive of the garden-
reason to think that recognizing formalism 's limits deals it a mortal variety emotions and deeply moving. It is a neat package.
blow. It is a doctrine that came into being after the great divide, to Enhanced formalism has, however, moved the garden-variety ~
provide an account of just that kind of music that began to flourish emotionijTom the listener into thunusic. The emotions are not, on
in the new musical environment of the public concert and concert this view, felt, but fc'"ognized.' \For this reason the view is sometimes
space. That it can deal only partially with music composed before called/~ motive co_gu!t~. Further, it is sometimes argued that
the great divide is to be expected.'sut, we should remember, it can this view cannot be right. The argument simply is this. If emotive
deal with pre-concert hall music to just the extent that that music is cognitivism is true, we are not emotionally moved by music. But we
well suited to being resituated in the public concert space.JThe par- are emotionally moved by music. So cognitivism cannot be true;
tial failure of formalism, even enhanced formalism, in accounting and, since emotive cognitivism is a necessary part of enhanced form-
for everything of aesthetic interest in 'early' instrumental music, alism, enhanced formalism can't be true either.
should not be allowed to obscure the fact of its great success in This is indeed a serious objection and it will require a separate
accounting for much of what continues to make that music inter- chapter to reply to it. In particular, it needs to be shown that the
esting and valuable to us. And, ifthe core of formalist doctrine is that truth of emotive cognitivism is consistent with the palpable fact that
'pure' instrumental music is music without semantic or representa- listening to music frequently turns out to be deeply moving, and
tional content, that core is left completely intact. Neither its diverse rightly so. I undertake this task in the next chapter.
social settings before the great divide, nor its diverse functions, gives
any aid and comfort to the idea that this music either 'means' or
'depicts': it hill> its functions, and it has its settings. It ne.ither 'me<!!ls'
nor .'.d epicts' either.
I have tried, in this chapter, to present an enlarged version of
formalism, enhanced formalism, that countenances emotive prop-
erties as a part of its structure and syntax. And I have tried to defend
it against some frequently stated objections. But one very serious
objections remains. It is as follows.
It will be recalled that one of the chief motivations of the arousal
theory of musical expressiveness was that it made of the musical
experience a deeply moving one. And that seems right. That is to
say, it seems to be true that we are, at least at some of the supreme

108 - Enhanced Formalism Enhanced Formalism - ro9

 terms, cannot, on this theory, be emotionally moving at all. (I shall
return to this implication of such theories later on.)
The general consensus nowadays, as I have remarked before, is
that we do not call music melancholy or cheerful (or whatever) in
CHAPTER 7 virtue of its causing us to be melancholy or cheerful. Rather, we

The Emotions in you ---

hear the melancholy and cheerfulness in the music as heard proB-
erties of it. IBut, if we recognize the emotions in the music, don't
feel them in us, how can we make out a case for the music's being
emotionally moving?
Now, of course, there is one obvious way in which music can
arouse the garden-variety emotions that no one can deny. Even
Hanslick, that arch-enemy of the musical emotions acknowledged
it. Hanslick called it music's 'patholo ic ' e~ct. But he did not mean
by 'pathological' anything 11ke-'c1:1seased' o;:.-'.ahnormal. ' Rather,
what he meant was that, depending upon tl\e speciat1circumstances
Recall that from the onset of the modern discussion of music and of an individual listener's experiences, or, per aps, thatlis ener's
the em tions there were two issues at stake: the expressiveness of particu~e ~tiona1 sta!e at the time of her hearing a piece of
music, and its power to move us emotionally The issue of expres- music, t e music ~ght, because of those special circumstances,
siveness is the issue of what it is in virtue of which we describe music or that particular emotional state, arouse a very real emotion like
--- -
in terms of the garden-variety emotions: happy, melancholy, angry, melancholy or cheerfulness in the stene I prefer to call this
and the like. The issue of music's emotive power over us, its power the 'o,ur-song' phenomenon. ('They're playing our song, Cynthia,
to move us emotionally, is the issue, of course, of how, why, ~e~re the o~ th';i't was pfay~first time we met, in that little bar on the
so moved. corner.') Here are two examples, one of music's emotional effect on
The simple arousal theory of musical expressiveness had, as we a person because of his particular emotional state, the other of
have seen, the same answer to both questions. Music, according music's emotional effect on a person because of his special circum-
to that theory, is described as 'melancholy,' 'cheerful,' and so forth, stances. (The two kinds of case are not, as a matter of fact, all that
because it makes normal listeners, under normal conditions, melan- different.)
choly and cheerful: it is melancholy and cheerful in .____ the disposi- In the first case, a homesick soldier returns to the United States,
tional sense: it has the disposition to make listeners melancholy or after three years of fierce combat, during the Second World War.
cheerful or whatever~ But it is emotionally moving for the very same You can well imagine the tumultuous emotional state he is in
reason: that it arous~s melancholy, and cheerfulness, and so on. It when he steps off the gangplank of the troopship that has brought
moves us to those emotions. Music that is not expressive of the garden- him home. As he places his foot on American soil, after three
variety emotions, then, music that is not describable in emotive years of danger, hardship, and loneliness, the Marine Band strikes up

The Emotions in you - III

'The Star-Spangled Banner.' He bursts into tears and experiences a the music, as heard properties of it, there is not a second step to the
tremendous emotional upheaval: a strange mixture ofjoy of home- process, in which recognizing the emotions in the music some-
coming, grief over lost comrades, and so forth. There is no denying how serves to arouse them in us. In other words, we can have our
that the music has had a real, palpable, indeed overwhelming emo- cake and eat it too . We can avail ourselves of the contemporary
tional effect on him, because of his heightened emotional state at insight that we call music melancholy or cheerful because we hear
the time of its being played. those qualities in the music, while still maintaining that music also
The second case I adduce is probably the most famous of all, at arouses those emotions in us, and so can be deeply moving emo-
least among movie-goers, of the 'our-song' phenomenon. In the tionally after all. So the proposal is: music makes 9s melancholy
movie Casablanca, Rick, the American saloon-keeper, has forbidden because it i~m~ancholy, and we recognize it as such;fnusic makes us
Sam, his friend, and the joint's piano-player, ever to play 'As Time cheerful because it is cheerful, and we recognize it as such. and so on.
Goes By.' That is because it was the favorite song of Rick, and his The music is deeply moving because it does this.
lost love, Ilsa, and whenever he hears it, it reminds him of her, and This approach has the obvious advantage, as the previous one did
arouses in him a mixture of deep melancholy and passionate anger. not, of connecting the emotions aroused with the right thing: not
(She left him-but, as it later turns out, for very noble reasons.) the individual pathology and circumstances of individual listeners
No one should doubt that these are real cases of real music arous- but recognized aesthetic properties of the music, namely, the garden-
ing real garden-variety emotions in listeners. (I put aside the added variety emotions it is expressive of. However, the crucial question is,
complication that both cases involve songs, with words as well as as the reader may already have surmised, how the melancholy music
music.) The problem, as Hanslick long ago correctly concluded, makes us melancholy, how the cheerful music makes us cheerful.
is that they have absolutely no aesthetic or artistic relevance at all. Why should it do that? After all, my dog may have a 'sad' counten-
The account we need is one that connects the emotionally moving ance; but looking at her scarcely makes me sad, because I know that
character of music with its aesthetically or artistically significant she is happy-she is wagging her tail madly and leaping around like
features. 'The Star-Spangled Banner' has a kind of strident, heroic a mad thing.
quality to it, as befits a national anthem. And 'As Time Goes By' is a There are two at least seemingly plausible theories abroad (among
sentimental love song. But the emotions they arouse, respectively, a host of obviously implausible ones) that purport to explain how
in the homecoming soldier, and in the unfortunate Rick, have noth- it is that melancholy music makes us melancholy, cheerful music
ing to do with the aesthetically significant emotive qualities of these cheerful, and so on. The first I will call the ·~a theor ,' the
two songs. Rather, what arouses the emotions has to do with the
particular lives of these two listeners. And for entirely different rea- ---
soon be apparent.
-
second the 'tendency theory.' The rationale for these names will

sons, 'The Star-Spangled Banner' might arouse anger in someone, The persona theory has it that we hear a piece of music as a
an anti-American, for example, whereas 'As Time Goes By' fills me human utterance. A symphony, for example, if it has abundant
with nostalgia for my childhood. The solution to our problem can- expressive properties, can be imagined as embodying an agent, a
-./

not lie with the' our-song' phenomenon or with listener 'pathology.' musical 'persona' as some people call it, that is makingt ese expres-
Why, however, can't we say that, although music is expressive of sive utteranc(s':-The persona successively expresses melancholy, joy,
the garden-variety emotions in virtue of our recognizing them in anger, and so on as the symphony progresses.

u2 ~ The Emotions in you The Emotions in you ~ n3

~e-music theorist Edward Cone called this persona, at one time, The defender of the persona theory will reply, quite correctly,
'the composer's voice.' But, as Jerrold Levinson, the chief proponent I think, that we regularly say that we feel real emotions in response
o tli.is view, has insisted, there is no need to imagine that the to fictional characters in our encounters with novels, plays, and
persona, say, of Mozart's great G Minor Symphony, is the musical movies; and since there is nothing surprising in that, there should
representation ofMozart; no need, in other words, to think that this be nothing surprising or implausible about our emotional reactions
persona, when expressing the grief or sorrow of the opening meas- to the imaginary emotive expressions of the fictive musical persona.
ures of the work, must be expressing Mozart's.grief or sorrow. All The musical persona is to symphonies what heroes and heroines are
we need do is imagine the persona as a ctional character_ex res- to movies, plays, and novels: a fictional character that, in the same

expresslllg -
sing these emotions. The persona need no more e t ought to be
- Mozart's grief and sorrow than Hamlet's 'To be, or not to
be' is expressing Shakespeare's indecision as to whether he should
way as in the other cases, elicits our emotional reactions.
As I say, at this point in the argument, this is a perfectly adequate
response (although we shall have occasion to re-evaluate its ade-
commit suicide or not (if that, indeed, is what Hamlet is really quacy later on). just because the musical persona is fictional should
expressing in the speech). not of itself rule out the possibility of empathy or sympathy, and
The persona theory then goes on to suggest that, as we hear the emotive arousal, since most people think that fictional characters in
expressive utterances of the musical persona in the symphony, we novels, movies, and plays have this power quite as a matter of course.
come, quite naturally, to feel the emotions that we imagine the This is not to say that whether and how fictional characters in liter-
musical persona to be expressing, just as we 'empathize' with a real ary and other narrative works of art raise real emotions in readers
person when she expresses her emotions. Thus, just as I 'feel with' and spectators is unproblematic. On the contrary, since the char-
Jane, feel her sadness when she cries, her joy when she laughs, so, acters are fictional and, therefore, we don't really believe there is
in the Minuet and Trio of Mozart's G-Minor Symphony, I feel anyone experiencing_ the emotions ~e are supposed to be respond-
with the persona as that being expresses somber but vigorous emo- ing to, it becomes difficult to explain how or why we should react
tions in the Minuet, lighter, more cheerful ones in the Trio, and to them emotionally at all. Indeed, becau-;-of this problem, some
then, again, the vigorous, somber ones when the Minuet returns. I people even deny that we do. (The full details of this difficulty will
imagine the Minuet and Trio as the expressive utterance of the per- become more apparent later on in this chapter. )
sona, and feel just those emotions that I hear the imagined persona But for present purposes I am going to assume that fictional
to be expressing. characters in novels, plays, and movies do in fact arouse the real,
It may be objected, at this point in the argument, that we feel with garden-variety emotions. Indeed, I am not one of those who denies
Jane, feel the emotions she is feeling and expressing, because Jane is it. Nevertheless, even giving this to the proponents of the persona
a real person with real emotions: real pains and real pleasures. theory, it seems to me to have serious problems that make it,
Whereas the musical persona is a mere imaginary entity, with no I believe, an unsatisfactory account of how music can move us
real emotions, pleasures or pains at all. What is the musical persona emotionally. I will adduce three.
to us that we should share this imagined being's imaginary emo- First of all, I myself was deeply moved by music long before I was
tions, pains, and pleasures? ever introduced to the idea that one can imagine musical works as

n4 - The Emotions in you The Emotions in you - II5

 having personae. I am not aware that, in those days, I ever imagined qualities that I simply couldn't identify with them. They left me
any such character expressing emotions in the musical works I emotionally cold.' But even the most shallow offictional works have

----- -
listened to. Nor do I do it now. As far as I can tell, music moves me characters with more flesh and blood on them than the musical
deep y without my being aware at all of musical personae expressing persona. If they fail to arouse emotions in the sophisticated reader
their emotive states. or viewer, how can the musical persona, whose sex, even, cannot be
Nor will it do for the proponent of the persona theory to reply that ascertained, be expected to do so. Compared to the musical persona
I do not need to be consciously aware of the emotion-expressing in the greatest of Beethoven's symphonies, the characters in the
persona for the persona to have the appropriate emotional effect on most tawdry soap opera are living, breathing beings.
me. That would be like claiming I do not need to be consciously There is no real mystery in all of this. Language and pictorial rep-
aware of Anna Karenina's unhappiness for me to be made unhappy resentation have the power to put flesh and bones on characters, to
through sympathy with her. It is just that awareness of her misery limn in the details of their personalities, that music alone does not
that causes me to share it, just as, in real life, I cannot 'feel with' Jane possess. Anna Karenina does not express her emotions in grunts and
her emotional ups and downs, unless I am aware of them. groans. She speaks. But the musical persona can say nothing of his,
But I do not wish to rest the argument against the persona or her, or its emotions. All the persona can do is 'say' 'melancholy;'
theory solely on 'anecdotal' evidence. My claim that I do not perceive 'cheerful,' 'fearful .' So, even if you do succeed in imagining the
emotive-expressing personae in musical works can perfectly well emotion-expressing persona in Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, he ,
be countered by Jerrold Levinson's claim that he does. And, if we she, or it will be a character without qualities that you might be able
simply leave it at that, it is an intractable stand-off. There is, how- to empathize with or, therefore, be aroused by to the garden-variety
ever, more to be said that d_9es not rely on first-_per~on reports. emotions. There is more 'personality' in Peter Rabbit.
The second and, I think, more serious objection to the persona Finally, even if the musical persona did have the depth of charac-
theory is that it relies on an apalogy between the ml!sical er~na ter of Anna Karenina or Hamlet, the machinery still wouldn't work
* and the characters in narrative fiction; and that analogy simply in the way required, because the theory, not infrequently; tracks the
won't stand up. Upon cl~rutiny, it completely breaks down wrong emotion. This is, indeed, a defect not merely in the persona
and, along with it, the arousal machinery of the persona theory. theory but in theories of narrative fiction as well that rely on 'iden-
Maybe the reader noticed that I never used the pronouns 'he' or tification,' and 'empathy' or 'sympathy' to explain emotive arousal.
'she' in reference to the musical persona. That was on purpose, Here is what I mean.
because the musical persona is such a vague, abstract, shadowy In 'real life,' my emotional reactions to other people's emotive
being that even 'its' sex cannot be determined. It is just that com- expressions is not simply: You express grief, I feel grief; you express
plete lack of specific personal qualities that distinguishes the anger, I feel anger. What emotion I feel depends not only on what
musical persona from the 'real flesh-and-blood' characters of the emotion you express, but who you are, who I am to you, and under
great movie-makers, novelists, and playwrights. And it is the latter what circumstances the emotion is expressed. If you express anger,
that have the power to arouse real emotions in us, if any fictional I may get angry, to be sure; but I may, rather, become afraid. If
characters do. We say of a bad novel, or play, or movie, 'The char- you express grief, I may experience grief with you, to be sure; but I
acters were so shallow, so wooden, so lacking in credible, "real-life" may; on the other hand, rejoice in your grief, if you are my enemy.

n6 - The Emotions in you The Emotions in you - n7

Sometimes I may 'identify' with you, and feel your emotions. But not the listener is deeply moved to sadness by happy music, and some-
always, or even as a rule. times deeply moved to happiness by sad music, just as I am deeply
By the same token, I do not always, by any means, 'sympathize' moved to sadness by the happiness of the villain, deeply moved to
with fictional characters. Anna Karenina's sorrow may make me happiness by the sadness of the villain, whereas the whole point of
sorrow with or for her. But Iago's final discomfiture makes me glad, the theory is to get the result that sad music is deeply moving (when
not sorry; and Othello's jealousy hardly makes me jealous; rather, it is) by making us sad, and happy music deeply moving (when it is)
furious at or fearful ofhis obtuseness. by making us happy. The persona theory cannot get that result, and
As bad a theory as the theory of identification with characters, should be rejected on those grounds alone by anyone who thinks
and feeling their emotions, is for narrative fiction, it is worse for that music is moving in virtue of the emotions it is expressive of
absolute music. Suppose we agree with the persona theory that being aroused in the listener.
our music listening involves hearing an emotion-expressing persona The second theory of how music moves by arousing the garden-
in music. The defender of the theory then has two options. He can variety emotions it is expressive of, the tendency theory, is leaner,
claim that, unlike both 'real life' and fictional narrative, we always more economical, than the persona theory. It relies sole!y on the
feel the same emotion as that being expressed. That has the happy e~essive~_of the music to account for the ::ousal: no musical
result of the listener's always feeling the emotion that the music persona need apply. Here is how it goes.
is expressive of, which is exactly what the defender of the persona It is commonly acknowledged that yellow is a cheerful color,
theory wants. But it has the unwanted consequence of forcing the black a somber one. We perceive these qualities of cheerfulness and
persona theorist to explain why this should be true only of music. somberness in the colors themselves: they are part of the color's
fWhy should I always feel the musical persona's emotion, when I perceived quality. Nonetheless, it surely is 'common sense,' in no
don't always feel Iago's emotion, or Desdemona's emotion, or my need of argument or experiment, so the theory goes, that the cheer-
best friend's emotion?J fulness of yellow has a tendency to make people cheerful, and the
The defender of the persona theory may answer: perhaps it is somberness of black has a tendency to make people somber. That,
because it is always, in the music, the appropriate emotive response presumably, is why a hotel would prefer yellow to black for the walls
to feel the musical persona's emotions, because the cir-bumstances in of its breakfast room. (Management wants you to be cheerful before
which the musical persQila is are always those where that emotive you get the bill. )
response is appropriate. But what are the circumstances that the But surely the same 'common sense,' the theory continues,
musical persona is in? That is just what absolute music does not have would apply to the expressive properties of music as well. At least so
the resources to tell us. So we will have to accept it on faith. Why argue the philosophers Colin Radford and Stephen Davies. If the
should we? cheerfulness of yellow has a tendency to cheer us, so too, it stands
The second alternative open to the defender of the persona to reason, should the cheerfulness of a symphony by Haydn. And if
theory is no more inviting than the first. She may say that, just as in the somberness of black has a tendency to make us somber, so too,
real life and in narrative fiction, the listener to the musical persona it stands to reason, does the somberness of Brahms, when he is in his
sometimes feels the persona's_emotion in response, and metimes somber vein. Furthermore, if the expressive properties of music
fe.els another. But that yields the absurd conclusion that sometimes have a tendency to arouse those emotions in us, they would, it seems

u8 - The Emotions in you The Emotions in you - n9

 reasonable to assume, sometimes do that. The tendency of aspirin to So now let us ask ourselves, given the assumption that melan-
cure headaches may not always be effective: often enough, however, choly music has a tendency to make us melancholy, cheerful music a
it is.
tendency to make us cheerful, what have we really committed our-
Davies illustrates his tendency theory with the following te!J- selves to? Does this tendency ever get cashed out? Or, like the car's
ing example. We are a!J familiar with the classical comic and tragic tendency to swerve left, does it remain unfulfilled? A brief return to
masks, the one expressive of gaiety, the other of melancholy. Sup- Davies's telling example of the tragic mask factory will, I think,
pose you worked in a factory that manufactured tragic masks: the show us that it is telling against, rather than for, the theory that the
kind people hang on their wa!Js. Day in and day out, eight hours a tendency of expressive music to arouse the emotions it is expressive
day, five days a week, you are surrounded by tragic masks: every- of arouses such emotions in the listener, even if such a tendency does
where you look there is that tragic frown. Surely, Davies argues, that in fact exist, given the circumstances under which normal human
would be pretty depressing. The melancholy of the masks must beings customarily experience musical works. The tendency, if it is
inevitably affect your mood. The tendency of the mask to produce there, is completely ineffectual.
melancholy would eventua!Jy have its way with you. So too, it seems Millions of us have tragic masks hanging on our walls, live with
apparent, would melancholy music.
them, and suffer no observable depression at all from their presence,
Now I am not, I confess, a!J that convinced that 'common sense' in spite of their purported tendency to that effect. In order for
is right about the expressive qualities we are talking about. 'Com- Davies to make out his case, he must adduce a far from normal
mon sense' has a distressing propensity for turning out to be com- example: working an eight-hour shift in a tragic mask factory. The
mon nonsense; and I am reluctant to accept, without evidence, that analogous musical example would have to be of someone exposed,
a!J expressive properties have the tendency to arouse their respective eight hours a day, five days a week, to music of unremitting melan-
emotions. But never mind. Let's grant the defender of the tendency choly. But who listens to music that way? Thus, even if melancholy
theory his premise: that a!J expressive properties, and, in particular, music did have a tendency to make us melancholy, even if cheerful
the expressive properties of music, have a tendency to produce in the music did have a tendency to make us cheerful, these tendencies seem
perceiver the emotions they are expressive of. On closer examina- no more likely to make us melancholy or cheerful than decorating
tion, I think the reader will agree with me that not very much has our offices and studies with tragic and comic masks. Nor is there any
been granted, not enough, certainly, to establish the tendency evidence that these tendencies, if they exist, have any such effects . People
theory ofhow music moves us emotiona!Jy.
who go to concerts of melancholy music, at least in my experience,
What should be noted straightaway is that something can truth- show no signs, either in the concert hall, or outside it, immediately
fu!Jy be said to have a tendency, without that tendency ever being thereafter, of having been depressed by the experience. More often
effective. An automobile, for example, may have a tendency to than not, if they are music lovers, and the performance has been
swerve to the left when driven over 90 miles per hour. But if, in good, they are exhilarated.
its whole career, it has never been driven over 90 miles per hour, Thus, it appears to me that the tendency theory is doomed to
that tendency will never have an effect: the car with the tendency to the fate of winning a trivial battle but losing the war. To win the
swerve to the left will, nonetheless, never swerve to the left.
point that melancholy music has a tendency to make us melancholy,

120 ~ The Emotions in you

The Emotions in you ~ 121
cheerful music a tendency to make us cheerful, sounds at first like a matter of choice, undergo the experience of melancholy, anger, fear?
real triumph for the arousal theory of how music moves us emo- Yet there is no evidence that people shun music expressive of the
tionally: Dig a little deeper, however, and you perceive how trivial inherently unpleasant emotions. So it seems implausible to think
the point really is. for, unless the circumstances are such as to allow that it is moving in virtue of arousing them. Indeed, when, because
the tendency to have its effect, its presence is irrelevantj The cir- of personal experiences, a piece of music acquires the power to
cumstances under which the tendency of melancholy music to make arouse unpleasant emotions, as in the case of the unfortunate Rick
us melancholy could really make us melancholy, if they are anything and 'As Time Goes By,' the listener does shun the music. 'Sam! Didn't
like the circumstances Davies proposes under which a tragic mask I tell you never to play that song!'
might depress us, would simply never occur in the normal listener's Various answers have been proffered to this objection. It has been
experience of music. They would have to be of a kind that would pointed out, quite rightly, that works of narrative fiction are agreed,
completely saturate the listener's environment in a way that just by most, to arouse unpleasant emotions; and we don't shun them
never happens in our musical world. For this reason, I think the for it. (King Lear scarcely leaves us untouched by emotions of the
tendency theory, like the persona theory, fails of its purpose. most deeply unpleasant sort.)
The theory that music moves us emotionally by arousing in us But the problem with this response, the analogy to works that
the emotions it is expressive of has, doubtless, more versions than employ the resources oflanguage and pictorial representation, is, as
the two I have canvassed. But these two, the persona theory and the previously, how different absolute music is from these kinds of works
tendency theory, seem to be good exemplars of the genre. Neither of art: novels, movies, plays. It is, indeed, a philosophical problem of
of them works, for reasons specific to each. It would, I think, be long standing why people should seek out such works as King Lear
tiresome, both for the reader and for me , to examine any further and Oedipus, whose emotional effects on audiences seem to be so
examples. In lieu of that, though, let me make one further criticism, palpably unpleasant at the well-known tragic moments. Do the
which applies, I think, to any theory holding that music moves by works somehow make the inherently unpleasant emotions pleasur-
arousing the emotions it is expressive of, if they are construed as able through some kind of artistic 'transfiguration'? Or is there a
being the garden-variety emotions. Not everyone finds this critic- beneficial effect, as Aristotle thought, of experiencing these emo-
ism altogether convincing; and there have been many attempts to tions, making the experience of them worthwhile, painful though
answer it. However, I find it a telling point, and making it will serve the experience may be?
as a good transition to my own account of how music moves us, Most people find the notion that an emotion inherently unpleas-
which has, in my view, among its other virtues, that it is immune to ant can be 'made' pleasant and still remain the emotion that it was
this oft-stated criticism. unacceptable, indeed, bordering on the absurd. 'Pleasing meian-
The point is simply this. If music were moving in virtue of arous- choly,' although perhaps a nice literary conceit, is, when taken liter-
ing the garden-variety emotions, then a good deal of music would ally, pretty hard to credit. This being the case, most philosophers of
result in very unpleasant experiences. Cheerful music would make literature try to show how the unpleasant emotions, particularly
us cheerful, to be sure. And who would shun that? But melancholy the tragic ones, that have been an object of study and dispute since
music would make us melancholy, angry music angry, fearful music Aristotle, when aroused by narrative fiction, serve some deep pur-
fearful. And who would seek that? Who would gratuitously, as a pose of moral or psychological education.

122 - The Emotions in you The Emotions in you - 123

 Such appeals to the psychological or moral benefits or 'pleasures' more favorable to them than in absolute music, would there not
of experiencing the tragic emotions have abundant conceptual be a distinct advantage, on these grounds alone, for having a theory
materials to work with in novels, plays, and moving pictures, pro- of how music moves us emotionally that does not have to explain
vided by the linguistic and representational elements of such works. why we enjoy having unpleasant emotions like melancholy and fear
But when philosophers try out such strategies on absolute music, aroused in us? In the remainder of this chapter I shall develop such
the pickings are pretty slim and the results predictably unpromising. a theory. Its basic, underlying premise is simple. We do not have
What claims for the imparting of moral or psychological education to explain why we enjoy those of the garden-variety emotions that
can be made that do not sound trivial, or silly? Ifone ' over-interprets' music moves us to, that are unpleasant, because it does not move
a musical work, making it 'say' things we know musical works can- us to the garden-variety emotions at all, either the pleasant or the
not 'say,' it sounds silly. (More of that in a later chapter.) And if we try unpleasant ones.ror, perhaps, more accurately, it moves us to another
to stay within the bounds of what it might sound reasonable to claim familiar emotion, call it 'garden variety' if you like, that raises no
music 'says,' it sounds trivial. One person claims that the transition such problems, as we shall see in a moment.J
from being expressive of joy to being expressive of gloom, in a pas- In order to develop the theory I have in mind, of how music
sage of music, 'says,' can 'teach' us that joy can follow sorrow in moves us emotionally, we must return to basics. The basics we have
a human life. Another tells us that Beethoven's Fifth Symphony's to return to are the basic ways in which ordinary emotions are ordin-
message to the world is that we should defy obstacles and adversities. arily aroused in our ordinary lives.
Do we need great symphonies to tell us that? If they did, would that Recall that Hanslick had already at least vaguely sketched out
make experiencing the sorrow worth the pain and trouble? If some- what has come to be accepted by many contemporary philosophers
one were to come to a teacher or guru he respected, and ask to be as a reasonable analysis of what is happening, in many of the normal,
directed to those works of art that could educate his moral sensibil- ordinary cases in which a human being experiences an emotion.
ities, would she really, if she were worthy of his confidence, direct According to this analysis, when I am angry, for example, there is, in
him to the symphonies of Beethoven instead of the plays of the ordinary, normal cases, an object of my emotion. I am angry at
Shakespeare or the novels of Jane Austen? This is not to say some- someone. Let's say I am angry at my friend. He is the object of my
thing bad about Beethoven's symphonies. It is to say that they are emotion.
with us for other purposes than those of moral and psychological Furthermore, ordinarily, I am in an emotional state l am experi-
education. They do not have the resources for that job, and were not encing for a reason, which can be cashed out in terms of a belief
put on earth to do it. (What they were put on earth to do I will say or set of beliefs. I am, normally, not angry for no reason at all. So
something about in the last chapter of this book. ) let's say that I am angry at my friend because I believe he cheated
There is raging dispute among philosophers about why we me in a poker game. So my emotion has an object, my friend; and
enjoy, if indeed we do, the tragic and other dark emotions in our a reason (or cause), my belief that my friend has cheated me. And,
encounters with narrative fiction, and those who deny outright if my belief should change, if I should cease to believe that my
that such works are a source of moral, psychological, or any other friend has done this bad thing to me, then it is logical to suppose
kind of knowledge. And if these claims are so contentious in the that my anger will dissipate, since the reason for my anger, its cause,
literary arts, and the cinema, where the prospects seem so much will have ceased to be operative. Emotion, in this regard, is not

124 - The Emotions in you The Emotions in you - 125

detached from reason, as has been frequently claimed, from Plato what I want to try to show now is that it fits the case of music.
onwards. Applied to music, it can show us how music moves us emotionally.
It is, by the way, because of the belief condition that there is I begin with an observation about the persona theory and the tend-
paradox and dispute connected with the arousal of emotion by ency theory. Both of them have what seems to me to be the highly
fictional narrative. Because fictional characters are fictional, we do objectionable result that the perceived beauty or general excellence
not believe such characters exist, do not believe anyone has done and of the music has nothing to do with whether or not it moves us . If a
undergone whatever it is they, fictionally, have done and undergone . piece of music is expressive, say, of melancholy, it must move me to
Therefore, there is no reason for us to have our emotions aroused by melancholy, if, that is, I recognize the melancholy in it, whether or
them and their doings. The belief condition is absent. If you don't not I am dazzled by its beauty, and think it is a masterpiece, or am
believe anyone has done anything to justify an emotion, you don't, utterly bored by it and think it is schlock. But being aroused to
ordinarily, have the emotion. And in fiction , one doesn't believe melancholy by the music is synonymous, on both of these accounts,
anything. with being moved by it. And it seems absurd to me to be told that
Finally, in ordinary cases of emotive arousal, an emotion fre- I am customarily moved emotionally be music that I take to be
quently has a feeling component. Emotions are usually said to be felt. bad music. In my experience, I am moved only by music that over-
This is not to say that every time I feel angry, for example, I feel whelms me with its beauty, magnificence, or other of its positive
the same way There is explosive anger, the so-called slow burn, as aesthetic qualities possessed to a high degree.
well as anger of great duration that may, in the long term, not be Closely related to this point is one, mentioned early on. It is a con-
associated with any particular feeling at all, but, rather, expressed in sequence of arousal theories of how music moves us emotionally
beliefs and dispositions to behave in certain ways, in various circum- - the persona theory and the tendency theory being paradigm
stances. But, in any case, there is, ordinarily, a feeling component to instances- that music not expressive of the garden-variety emo-
the garden-variety emotions. tions cannot be deeply moving: cannot move us emotionally For the
So, to sum up, in many of the ordinary cases of having an emo- expressive properties are an essential part of the musical machinery
tion, there is an object of the emotion, a belief or set of belieft that that moves us.
causes the emotion, and causes it to have the object it does, and a Some people may not be uncomfortable with this conclusion,
certain feeling aroused in the one experiencing the emotion. This since so much of the music talked about in the philosophical liter-
is not to say that there cannot be cases where an emotion has no ature is rife with expressive qualities, and the musical works probably
apparent object, or no apparent belief associated causally with it. most listened to by the average classical music lover are from the
The word 'emotion' covers a lot of ground. And human beings ex- Romantic era, where 'expression' is, of course, the central concern.
perience emotions in all sorts of ways, some of them odd, some of But there is music that is not expressive, and not being expressive is
them inexplicable, some of them downright abnormal. None ofthis not a condemnation. There is wonderful, beautiful, magnificent
is being denied. There may well be emotions that fall outside the net music that either is not expressive of the garden-variety emotions by
of the object- belief-feeling analysis. All that is being maintained is that design, or not expressive of them by accident. And such music can be
this analysis of emotions does seem to fit a lot of the central cases. So deeply moving, at least in my experience.

126 ~ The Emotions in you The Emotions in you ~ 127

 Perhaps an example here might be helpful. If you listen to some of (c.1440-1521) or Orlandus Lassus (1532-94), arguably the greatest
the works of the Renaissance composers writing in the late four- composers of the high Renaissance , and two of the most frequently
teenth, fifteenth, and early sixteenth centuries-and such music is performed today of that period.
easily accessible on recordings, these days-you will frequently hear The point I want to make about this music is that it is wonderful,
works that have a kind of serene, untroubled quality about them. beautiful, magnificent music. But a lot of it is not expressive music in
They flow in an effortless way, with the strands of melody of the vari- the sense we have been talking about. It is not, by turns, expressive
ous voices interweaving in the most intricate patterns imaginable ~ of sadness, happiness, anguish, and fear, and the limited other garden-
but giving no impression of rising to big, attention-getting climaxes, variety emotions music may be expressive of: it is not that kind
as in so much music we are used to listening to, from later histor- of music at all. It is, overall, serene, tra!!_q~ music. But it is, none-
ical periods. I am not, by the way, saying that all of the music of this theless, deeply moving music: music that deeply moves and excites
period is as I have been describing it so far. I am only saying that some us by its serene, tranquil beauty, not by its being expressive of the
of it is, and that that is a kind of music frequently encountered in the garden-variety emotions, which it is not.
composers of these times. What, then, can we make of all this? Well, it seems to me that the
This serene quality of the music which I am speaking about is most obvious thing to make of it is that what deeply moves me emo-
further facilitated by the way the music is usually performed, which tionally by music is just that very beauty, or magnificence, or other
is to say, by voices alone, without accompanying instruments: a positive aesthetic properties it may possess to a very high degree.
capella, as it is called; literally, 'by the choir.' There are no inde- The bject ofrhe 'musical emotion,' ifl may so callit, for want of g
pendent instrumental parts composed for this music, although some bett ·s music. (What else?) Or, more exactly, the object of the
scholars think that instruments may have sometimes accompanied musical emotion is the set of features in the music that the listener
the singers, playing the same notes that the singers sang: 'doubling' believes are beautiful, magnificent, or in some other ways aesthet-
them , as musicians call the procedure. But whether or not this is ically admirable to a high degree. Thus the first requirement of the
true, many of the recordings you are likely to hear will be a capella. object-belief-feeling analysis of how music moves us emotionally, an
And because there are no instruments playing along, there is a more object for the emotion, is now in hand.
subdued sound produced. What of the belief requirement? That, clearly, is fulfilled by the
Furthermore, women were not permitted to sing in churches in listener's belief that the music she is listening to, or an aspect of it, is
these times (and it is liturgical music that I am discussing here). The beautiful, magnificent, or in some other ways possessing positive
high parts were sung not by female singers but by choir boys. And aesthetic properties to a very high degree. This means that, if she
some conductors these days prefer to perform this music as it was ceases to have this belief or set ofbeliefs, the music will cease to have
performed in its own time: with all male choruses. Now boys have any (or much) emotional effect on her, just as when I cease to believe
crystal-clear, almost passionless, ethereal voices. And if you get a that my friend has cheated me at cards I cease to be angry with him.
recording of the music about which I am speaking, sung a capella by And this sounds right, doesn't it? For music that once deeply moved
a choir of men and boys, you will get the most vivid example of me has now ceased to have an emotional effect. Why? Because, so to
that serene, almost passionless quality one can frequently hear in speak, I have 'seen through it.' What I once thought was a stirring
such music: some of the music, for example, of Josquin des Prez example of musical magnificence 1now see as a cheap trick: shallow

128 - The Emotions in you The Emotions in you - 129

 -,

and showy. Whereas music that once seemed turgid and dense, lack-
ing in melodic spontaneity, now 'knocks my socks off. ' In short, my -
or 'wonder,' or 'awe ,' or 'enthusiasm.' It is the name for that emo-
-
ti onal 'high' one gets when experiencing things that one thinks are
musical allegiances have switched from Liszt to Bach. wonderful or beautiful or sublime or ... . Though if someone asks
Fortunately, there is no need to raise and answer the question you what that feeling feels like, I think the best, the only, way you can
of whether, in some 'objective' sense, Bach's music is better than respond is to say: 'Well, it's the feeling of excitement or exhilaration
Liszt's, although, as a matter of fact, I thinkit is. All that is necessary or enthusiasm . . . that one gets when listening to great, to wonder-
for the object- belief- feeling analysis to go through is that there is belief ful , to magnificent music.'Jln part, in other words , it is the object
If you believe that what you are hearing is musically magnificent or of the emotion that helps define or determine not just what the
beautiful, or splendid, if it 'knocks your socks off,' then it will move emotion is, but how it feels, which, after all, is to say no more for this
you emotionally, even if it is my trash and leaves me untouched. emotion than for any of the garden-variety ones with names like
(There needn't be ghosts for little boys to be afraid of them. 'You 'fear' or 'anger' or 'melancholy,' or 'love j For how fear or love 'feels,'
gotta believe,' that's all. ) when you really think about it, is best described with reference to
So we now have in place the second component of our analysis: what it is that is feared or loved. You say: 'Well, it's the feeling you
the belief component; the belief that the music we are listening to is get when you love your son, or your dog, or your violin.' But those
beautiful, wonderful, magnificent music. What of the third com- feelings 'feel' different, even though they are all 'love' ; and how else
ponent? What of the feeling we are moved to by music? What kind of can you describe the difference of the 'feels' than to say what the
a thing is that? particular objects of these 'loves ' are?
Here there might seem to be some trouble lurking. For I pro- In summary, then , l have tried to give here an 4bject- belief- feeling_\
mised an account of how music moves us emotionally that would be analysis of how music moves us emotionally.lrhe object of the emo-
quite ' ordinary' : that would, in other words, make the phenomenon tion is, in a word, the beauty of the music; the beliefis that the music
of being emotionally moved by music explainable in just the ordin- is beautiful; the feeling is the kind of excitement or exhilaration
ary, everyday way we explain how our friend makes us angry, how or awe or wonder ... that such beauty customarily arouses_JBut I 1'
our lover makes us jealous, or how our foes make us fearful. But promised, when I began thjs analysis, that the result would be free of
that's just it. These ordinary, garden-variety emotions, these feelings the problem theories such as the persona theory, or the tendency
of anger, jealousy, and fear, all have specific names by which we theory, face, of why one would want to listen to music that aroused
know them. What is this 'musical emotion,' though? It sounds like the unpleasant emotions- fear, anger, melancholy, and the like.
something special and mysterious. To readers of the past philosoph- Now we are in a position to see why this indeed is so: why my ana-
ical literature on aesthetics, it will recall, unpleasantly, various failed lysis does not have that problem.
theories of arcane 'aesthetic emotions' that were supposed to be Let's take, for example, the experience of a piece of deeply
aroused by works of art and other aesthetic objects. That is the last melancholy music, even funereally melancholy music: say, the slow
I
thing in the world I want to suggest. movement of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. I find this movement
But not to worry. There really is no mystery here. The emotion deeply moving, as do all lovers of classical music. But what am I
that music arouses does have a name. It's just that the name is moved by? Well, certainly, the movement contains many musical
not specific to music. The name is 'excitement,' or 'exhilaration,' features to be wondered at and enjoyed: features that are awesomely

130 - The Emotions in you The Emotions in you - 131

beautiful, magnificent, and so on. One of those musical features is they are not quite full-blooded. They are 'quasi-emotions,' or
its deep, funereal melancholy. Recall: the expressive properties of 'emotion-like' : quasi-melancholy or melancholy-like.
music are, I have argued before, musical properties. So, among the The reason for this qualification is that both of them, as we
many musical properties of this movement that deeply move me in all, recognize that real, full-blooded emotions have what might be
this movement is its profound, stately, funereal melancholy. called a 'motivating component,' whereas their musical counter-
Now to be moved to funereal melancholy is to be moved to a very parts do not seem to. In life, when I am afraid, I am motivated to
unpleasant state indeed. But to be moved by funereal melancholy to flight, when I am angry, I am motivated to fight, and so on. But I am
excitement and enthusiasm and joy over its musical beauty is, on the motivated neither to flight nor fight when I am in the presence of
contrary, to be moved to an emotion devoutly to be wished. Thus 'fearful' or 'angry' music. So the 'fear' or 'anger' that music arouses
the presence of the dark, unpleasant emotions in deeply moving lacks that motivating component and is, in that respect, on the
music presents no problem for the view being outlined here. For on views ofDavies, Levinson, and others, therefore, only quasi-fear and
this view, when we are moved by these emotions in the music, anger, or fearlike or anger-like: quasi-emotions or emotion-like.
which certainly I do not deny we are,~not moved to them but (I should add that Davies thinks music arouses but two emotions:
~m. We are moved by their musical beauty. If it is melancholy, happiness and sadness. )
we are moved by how beautifully melancholy the music is. !fit is fear But, now, in a certain sense, the emotion that, on my view, is
or anger, we are moved by how magnificently fearful or angry the aroused, say, by the melancholy quality of a musical passage might
music is: musically magnificent, of course . The emotions in music, also be described as quasi-melancholy or melancholy-like. When,
when it is beautiful or magnificent music, and when expressively on my view, the melancholy quality of a piece of music moves us, it
beautiful or magnificent music, are, without a doubt, implicated in is the melancholy of the music that is the object of the emotion,
the phenomenon of our being emotionally moved. They move us; even though the emotion is not melancholy. Thus, the musical emo-
but only in the way that any other musical qualities in the music tion that beautifully melancholy music arouses in me , though not
move us. They move us by their beauty, or other positive aesthetic melancholy, has melancholy as its object. And in that respect it is
qualities, to an emotional high over the music. And there is no like melancholy in life, or in fiction, when I feel melancholy over
reason at all to think that, because experiencing them would be someone else's melancholy. In that sense it is melancholy-like or
unpleasant, the experience of their beauty would be. Why would quasi-melancholy. So perhaps the persona theory, the tendency
the experience of artistic beauty be anything but the opposite? theory, and my own theory are not so far apart as they might seem.
There are two further points I would like to make before I close At least there might be some room for accommodation.
this discussion. And to do it I must return very briefly, once again, to Furthermore, if my view of how music moves us emotionally is
the persona and tendency theories. correct, it might offer some explanation of why many people, mis-
In my previous discussion of these theories I omitted a point that takenly, I think, are convinced that they are made melancholy by
now requires raising. Both Levinson and Davies, in presenting their melancholy music, fearful by fearful music, cheerful by cheerful
theories of how the expressive properties of music arouse those music. What is happening to them, I conjecture, is that, if the music
respective emotions, make a very important qualification. Both of is beautifully melancholy, or beautifully fearful, or beautifully
them deny that the emotions aroused are literally those emotions: cheerful, then this music moves them to a high state of emotional

132 - The Emotions in you The Emotions in you - 133

 excitement with melancholy or fearfulness or cheerfulness as its
object; and when this happens, they mistake this emotive excite-
ment for melancholy in the first instance , fear in the second
instance, cheerfulness in the third, since these are its objects. I have
no proof or evidence that that is what is happening. But it is not, so CHAPTER 8
far as I can see, an unreasonable suggestion; and I will leave it at that.
(Perhaps the psychologists can do something with it. )
What I have been trying to do in this chapter, and the preceding Foes of Formalism
two, is to outline a view of absolute music that I have been calling,
fo r reasons you now know, 'enhanced formalism.' And I have, as
well, been trying to defend it against various obj ections that have or
might be raised against it. In the chapter following I must confront
not exactly an obj ection to formalism, although you might see it as
that, but, rather, a whole school, or set of schools, of musical inter-
pretation that, apparently, by their very practice, assume, at least
implicitly, that formalism is false. I suppose it might be said that the Absolute music presents an apparently stark contrast with the two
mere existence of such a school, or set of schools, of musical inter- most powerful and pervasive traditions in Western art: visual rep-
pretation is an argument against formalism, even in its 'enhanced' resentation and narrative fiction.
version. The distinction between visual representation and narrative
However you may want to look at it, these non-formalistic prac- fiction is not, I must add by way of clarification, a clear one. Both
tices of musical interpretation flourish, and are on the increase. It is, movies and plays, as opposed to novels, short stories, and narrative
therefore, necessary for anyone defending formalism to confront poems, employ visual representation as well as language to tell their
them. I do not think at this stage of the debate that it is really pos- stories. And the visu al arts of painting and sculpture can, in a limited
sible to present some sort of philosophical argument to demolish all way, be narrative, as well as, of course, represent fictional characters.
non-formalist interpretations of the absolute music canon. But cer- That being said, I shall, nevertheless, throughout this chapter, treat
tainly it is possible to examine this set of practices critically, and lay the arts of visual representation and narrative fiction as separate and
bare some of its problems and assumptions. Furthermore, it is distinct. It will be easier, that way, for present purposes.
incumbent on anyone who writes an introduction of the kind I am Throughout its recent history, from the end of the eighteenth
presenting at least to acqu aint the reader with the opposition. For to century to the present time , the absolute music canon has been sub-
leave him or her with the impression that, at this point in time, mus- ject to interpretations that analogize it both to the visual arts of rep-
ical fo rmalism, even enhanced musical fo rmalism, is the dominant resentation and to the arts of narrative fictiGn. But by far the most
force or in the ascendancy would certainly be to create a false predominant non-formalist interpretational approaches to music
impression. So let us now at least reconnoitre the enemy camp, and alone are of the latter kind. This is not surprising. For both absolute
test its fortifications. music and narrative fiction are...lfll1 gr_al ar ~ . Their 'objects' are not

134 ~ The Emotions in you

present at once but 'unfold' before us. Or, to put it another way, with the expression of great ideas. When we read such utterances
both musical works and works of narrative fiction are processes in we are inclined to say that they are 'meaningless marks on the page':
progress. You cannot perceive the end until you have perceived the 'nonsense on stilts,' as it was once happily put. And when we hear
beginning and the middle. such utterances in lectures and conversation, we will say, analog-
This is not to say that the visual arts of painting and statuary do ously: 'meaningless noise.' That is the supreme insult to the speaker
not take time to perceive. You must 'take in' a statue or a painting, of words.
take in its parts and aspects; and that, of course, takes time, just as But isn't that just what the formalist is saying absolute music
listening to a symphony or reading a novel. But a painting or statue is? Isn't she saying that the symphonies of Beethoven, the string
is there for you all at once. And, although looking at it is a tem- quartets of Haydn, the organ fugues of Bach are 'meaningless
poral process, it is a tern oral process ~ected by~u, whereas the noise'? And what greater condemnation could there be of a human
sequence of events constituting a novel or movie or symphony is enterprise? 'You spent your life making meaningless noises.'
under the direction of the artist: if you are going to experience that Furthermore, music is not only a human artifact. It is an aural
work of art, you must experience events in that order. The experi- artifact. It is a human construction made up of sounds. These
ence of paintings and statuary takes time. The experience of novels, sounds are highly organized, and the whole enterprise is embedded
plays, movies, and symphonies takes strictly ordered time. in an elaborate system of rules and practices. In this it most closely
Because musical works are temporal works, in the same way that resembles spoken language. It is, I suppose, no big deal to declare
narrative fictions are, it seems natural that narrative fictions, rather that a human artifact such as a bicycle, or a hat, is 'meaningless.'
than pictorial or sculptural representations, should provide a non- Indeed, it sounds a bit silly. 'Meaning' is not something bicycles and
formalist model for the interpretation of absolute music. And in hats were brought into being to serve in the first place. But absolute
recent years that has indeed happened more and more. But it is fair music is humanly constructed sound; and the only other such major
to ask, before we begin to examine these narrative interpretations of sound construction is speech, which exists, obviously, for the sole
the absolute-music canon, why they have been resorted to in the first purpose of conveying the speaker's meaning to others. Music, then,
place. Or, to put it another way, why do many people find the form- as the formalist sees it, looks to the non-formalist as meaningless
alist interpretation of this canon, even in its 'enhanced' version, babble.
wanting? All of this, I think, weighs heavily on people's minds, who find
To begin to answer this question, let me allude to an experience themselves unable to accept the formalist creed that absolute music
that many of us have had, in the profession of philosophy, but that is is 'merely' an appealing structure of sound. It is a human utterance.
by no means unique to that academic discipline. (I am sure many If it is meaningless, it is worthless, or, at most, 'm ere decoration':
of you have it in other contexts. ) Philosophy has a reputation for 'sonic wallpaper.'
being 'profound,' 'difficult,' and of great 'complexity.' This reputa- As well, the formalist account of absolute music, even where,
tion can be exploited to the advantage of those who really have noth- as in enhanced formalism, human emotions, in some form or
ing much to say that is profound, or even interesting, but who have other, are allowed in, seems to make such music 'remote,' so to speak,
mastered the art, if that is the right word for it, of putting their non- from the world of the 'humanities,' of' arts and letters', to which,
thoughts in the complex and difficult way many people associate since the end of the eighteenth century, it has been seen to belong. It

136 - Foes of Formalism Foes of Formalism - 137

seems to be made an occult science, practiced by a secret society, and music. And, if formalism were true with regard to narrative
with no attachment at all to the needs and concerns of normal fiction, it would hardly be an escape from musical formalism to
human beings. Yet normal human beings do love and cultivate show that absolute music is a kind of narrative fiction.
absolute music, and at least a small but significant number think Formalism in narrative fiction and the visual arts of representa-
that the appreciation of such music is part of a full education and a tion is not currently a very popular doctrine, however. I certainly do
well-rounded life. The 'remoteness' and 'emptiness' of musical for- not subscribe to it; and ifit were the only threat to the fictional inter-
malism make these attitudes and practices seem incomprehensible . pretation of absolute music, I would not think that the purveyors
lfformalism is true, what is absolute music to us? of such interpretations need be running scared. But the demise of
Such, I believe, are some of the considerations that drive some formalism in the representational and narrative arts does not in
people away from the formalist understanding of absolute music. itself mean that, if one could reveal absolute music to be one of the
But, one may well ask, why are such people driven into the arms of narrative art forms, one could, ipso facto, have shown that it should
fictional narrative as an alternative? The obvious answer is: Because be any more 'important' to human beings than the ordinary narrat-
it is there. In the temporal arts, narrative fiction is its most popular ive forms such as novel , play, and movie. Here is why.
and populous manifestation. It seems natural enough that the There is considerable dispute among philosophers of art, and has
'emptiness' of musical formalism should seek sustenance in the been since antiquity, as to why the experiencing of narrative fictions
'content' of the 'storyline. ' Absolute music, like the other temporal itself, in its familiar forms, should be important to us. Certainly
arts, has form, to be sure. But if, like them, it tells a tale, it has con- there is no doubt whatever that all human beings, everywhere,
tent as well. enjoy fictional tales, from storytelling around the campfire to the
There must, however, be more to the matter than this. For the most sophisticated forms of narrative art. But, after all, there is cer-
question of why 'telling a story' and listening to one should be tainly no doubt whatever that all human beings, everywhere, enjoy
important to us is as vexed a question as why purely formal patterns the beauty of pure formal design, whether it be visual or sonic. If all
of sound should be. that can be said for narrative fiction's importance to human beings is
Narrative fiction, in its 'important' instances, as high art, is fre - that they have an innate propensity for taking pleasure in it (which
quently said to be 'meaningful' not only in the obvious sense ofhav- isn't such a bad defense, when you really think about it), then the foe
ing stories as its content: being about Odysseus and his adventures, of formalism has gained no advantage, in explaining the importance
or Don Quixote and his. But it is frequently said to express, through of absolute music by showing that it really is a narrative art form.
these stories and characters, important philosophical, moral, polit- For in that regard-in regard to importance for human beings-
ical, or social truths, hypotheses, ways oflife, that make such narrat- narrative art and the arts of pure design may well be on all fours with
ive fiction an important source of knowledge, particularly (but by one another. The 'justification' (if that is the right word) for all of
no means entirely) self-knowledge or knowledge about 'how to live.' them is the same: we just take pleasure in them, enjoy them; they
There have been and are, however, those who have vigorously entertain and divert us; they are recreation. (And whether this is
denied that narrative fiction has any such powers to impart know- innate ~ acquired makes no difference in the argument. )
ledge of any importance to us. Some of these, indeed, have been No~ it would be disingenuous of me to leave the impression that
formalists with regard to literary fictions as well as the visual arts I agree with the argument I have just outlined above. What I wanted

138 - Foes of Formalism Foes of Formalism - 139

to show was that whether narrative fiction does have the knowledge- But before I get to the strategies for the narrative interpretation of
providing function that some ascribe to it is highly contentious. And absolute music, it must be added that narrative interpretation is not
if you are a skeptic in this regard, then you will not find the project of the only game in town that the foes of formalism play. There is, as
interpreting absolute music as narrative fiction promising as an well, in the literature, the strategy of interpreting works of abso-
explanation of its importance: if, that is, you think that lacking the lute music not as fictional narrative but, rather, as, so to speak,
knowledge-providing factor, the only other importance of narrative 'philosophical discourse.' Instead of treating symphonies and string
fiction is enjoyment, pleasure, or however you want to put it. quartets as stories, such practitioners treat them as, essentially,
As a matter of fact, I hold the view that one of the important direct expressions, by means of music, of philosophical or moral or
features of some narrative fiction is the expression of important religious precepts. And, although the problems surrounding the
knowledge claims. And I presume, as well, that no one who believes narrative interpretation of the absolute music canon are problems
in the knowledge-providing function of narrative fiction believes for 'philosophical' interpretations as well, the latter do deserve a
that all such works have that as even part of their function. I separate hearing after the narrative strategies are discussed.
imagine we all, no matter what our stripe, believe that some narrat- It seems, then, at present, there are the following non-formalist
ive fiction exists for the sole purpose of entertainment. (We don't options for the interpretation of the absolute music canon. Works
turn to detective novels or soap operas for philosophical or moral of absolute music can be treated as narrative fictions that, through
illumination. ) From this it follows that, even if there is a knowledge- their narrations, 'express' significant knowledge claims or hypotheses.
providing aspect to fictional narrative, which accounts, in part, for They can be treated as, so to speak, 'discourses' that express such
its importance to us, showing that absolute music can be inter- knowledge claims or hypotheses directly, without the use of fic-
preted as fictional narrative will not, ipso facto, make this knowledge- tional narrative. Or they can be treated as fictional narratives that
providing factor available to absolute music as an explanation of its have no further significance beyond their 'entertainment' value as
importance to human beings. What has to be shown is that absolute ' fictional narratives. (Of course, the non-formalist might avail herself
music is not only fictional narrative but the right kind of fictional of all three strategies, depending upon the particular work she is
narrative- the kind that has the knowledge-providing aspect, not interpreting. )
merely the kind that is 'pure entertainment.' And, whatever the There are, these days, as I see it, two basic strategies for the inter-
prospects are for interpreting absolute music as fictional narrative- pretationof:kbsolute music as fictional narrative. I shall call them
and I shall get to these prospects in a moment-the prospects for '~d 'strong' narrative interpretation. And which of these
showing that it is the kind of fictional narrative that can impart practices one indulges in depends upon how detailed one is willing
knowledge or moral illumination are dim indeed, as I have already to get about the stories absolute music is supposed to tell. The basic
suggested in a previous chapter. problem is to steer a course between making the stories so vague
All this being said, it is, indeed, an important question whether or contentless- remember the musical 'persona'!- that they can-
absolute music is subject to narrative interpretations, whether or not possibly have any aesthetic interest whatever, and making them,
not it is the kind of interpretation that would yield knowledge or instead, so detailed and specific that the interpreter will be charged
moral insight. with reading things into the work that couldn't possibly be there, in

140 - Foes of Formalism Foes of Formalism - 141

other words, using the work simply as a stimulus to her own imagina- Katherine Hepburn falls in love with Cary, and eventually, he with
tion. Let's look at 'weak' interpretation first. her. He goes from the 'wrong' girl to the 'right' one.
A very fashionable way, right now, to interpret musical works is to In the far more well-known Bringing Up Baby, again the Grant-
claim that they don't have plots but, rather, that they have what are Hepburn pair play out the same plot archetype. In this one, many of
called 'plot arche~' This, I gather, is a strategy that is supposed you will remember, Cary plays a paleontologist, engaged to his
to avoid the extreme of overly detailed interpretations. To see what assistant, another paleontologist, who is 'dry as bones.' He meets,
the strategy amounts to we must first get a handle on the concept of on the golf course, Katherine Hepburn, gay, full of fun, utterly zany,
the plot archetype. and, of course, quite irresistible. He resists her (or seems to) for the
Consider the plots of those two masterpieces of the Western whole movie and, of course, falls in love with her in the end.
literary canon, The Odyssey and The Wizard of Oz. (Come on: don't So, Holiday and Bringing Up Baby: two very different plots, but the
get snooty; The Wizard of Oz is a masterpiece- of a kind. ) In the same plot archetype: call it the wrong-girl- right-girl archetype.
Odyssey, as we all know, Odysseus leaves his happy home , goes off The idea for musical interpretation is that works of absolute
to war, and then, through many and great trials and tribulations, music do not have plots, but plot archetypes. For example, many
finally returns home to live (we hope) happily ever after with his works of literary fiction have the plot archetype: struggle through
faithful wife Penelope. In The Wizard ofOz, Dorothy (involuntarily) adversity to ultimate triumph. The Odyssey might be said to exhibit
goes off to Oz (or is it really a dream?) and then, through many that plot archetype in addition to the long voyage home one because
and great trials and tribulations, finally returns home to Kansas Odysseus' 'odyssey' is a struggle through adversity to ultimate
to live (we hope) happily ever after with her aunt Em and uncle triumph (the slaying ofhis wife Penelope's suitors and the regaining
Henry. of his family and home). And one of the most oft-repeated claims
In both works, the Odyssey and The Wizard of Oz, the storyline of the plot-archetype people is that Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is
consists almost entirely of the events involved in the journey home: the quintessential exemplar, in music, of that very struggle-through-
the story is really the journey. Now, of course, the characters, events, adversity-to-ultimate-triumph plot archetype of which I have just
settings, and other details of the plots are vastly different. But the now been speaking. It begins in the key of C minor and displays
general plot structure is the same. We might call it 'the long voyage throughout a musical fabric that certainly can be characterized with
homtt.' That is the plot archetype that the Odyssey and The Wizard of such expressive descriptions as dark, passionate, turbulent, stormy,
Oz have in common. Their plots are very different; but when you embattled. Then, in the triumphant coda, it breaks into victorious C
strip away the differences, there is revealed, in them both, the same major fanfares . It ends in triumphant joy.
plot archetype. So powerful was the effect of the 'Mighty Fifth' on composers
Again, in the Hollywood comedies Holiday and Bringing Up Baby, following Beethoven that, so the practitioners of plot-archetype
the plots are very different. In Holiday , Cary Grant meets a beautiful, interpretation tell us, its plot archetype was used by them over and
rich young woman on a skiing vacation, they quickly become over again. The prime example, perhaps, is the First Symphony of
engaged, and, when they return to New York, she brings him home Johannes Brahms, also in C minor, also ending with a broad, joyful
to meet her (very rich) family Among them is her far less glamor- theme (although it is a tranquil and serene joy, rather than a strident
ous, but far more interesting sister, played by Katherine Hepburn. joy that that well-known theme seems to express). Another instance

142 - Foes of Formalism Foes of Formalism - 143

is Mendelssohn's Scotch Symphony, in A minor, ending with a approach sanctions, and claims to do : to tell you what the plot
triumphal, hymnlike theme in the tonic major key, that is, A major. archetype of a work is without having to tell you or even knowing
Now it is fairly clear what benefits are supposed to be reaped from what the plot is. Indeed, he insists, there is no plot to tell.
ascribing a plot archetype rather than a plot to Beethoven's Fifth If you think, as I do, that logic doesn't end where music begins,
Symphony. If you say that the symphony has a plot that goes from then you will wish, as I do, that people would stop talking about
struggle to triumph, you are obliged to tell us what the details of the musical works having plot archetypes without having plots, since
plot are. Is it Odysseus' struggle to return home to slay the suitors that is logic gone on holiday.
and reclaim his home? Is it Wellington's struggle to rid Europe of the Of course, the defender of the plot-archetype approach does have
Napoleonic yoke, ending triumphantly at Waterloo? Or . . . ? Who one thing right. Symphonies can be expressive of struggle and tri-
can tell? The symphony does not have the resources to paint such umph and other such things, as Beethoven's Fifth is. But that is no
pictures, to tell such stories, the formalist will insist. more than enhanced formalism allows. And, because music can be
Not to worry, the defender of the plot-archetype approach will expressive of these emotions and actions, and possess other struc-
respond. We do not say that Beethoven's Fifth Symphony has a plot, tural and sensual properties, it can be used to underlie plots and plot
so we are not obliged to tell you whether it is about Odysseus or the archetypes when it is set to texts or dramatic situations. That, how-
Duke of Wellington or anyone else . What we say is that it has a plot ever, is another thing entirely, and will be dealt with in the following
archetype: struggle through to triumph. And any sensible person chapter.
can hear it. Isn't it obvious that the symphony is expressive first of Where, then , does that leave the foe of formalism? She can't,
struggle and adversity, then of triumph? somehow, do an 'end run' around the details of real literary plots,
The problem with the plot-archetype approach, however, is quite which many people find it difficult to credit absolute music with
simple. It is logically absurd. A symphony can no more have a plot having, by resorting to the notion that it has, instead, plot arche-
archetype without having a plot than a man who is not married can types, which aren't encumbered with those details. That's just a log-
get a divorce. It is, plainly, a logical or conceptual truth that only ical absurdity: the smile without the cat. The obvious alternative is
married people can get divorces. Likewise, it is plainly a logical or just to bite the bullet and claim, outright, that works of absolute
conceptual truth that only works of art with plots can possess or music do have plots, details and all. That alternative approach we
exhibit plot archetypes. The former, in each case, in other words, is must now consider.
a logical condition of the latter. Perhaps the most ardent proponent of 'strong' narrative inter-
Think, for a moment, about how you figure out what plot arche- pretations is the American musicologist Susan McClary. She has
type a literary work exhibits. First, you have to know the details of been particularly disturbing to some because her interpretations
the story. Then you figure out from them what the plot archetype is. have frequently involved sexual and 'gender' content. But that par-
In other words, you' abstract' from plot to plot archetype: you, so to ticular aspect of her interpretations is not at issue here. What is at
speak, strip away the individual details of the plot to 'get to' the plot issue is whether the kind of narrative interpretation she practices,
archetype. It is absurd to be asked to tell someone what the plot 'strong' interpretation, regardless of its specific content, is justifi-
archetype of a work is, unless that person first tells you what the able. Let us approach this issue by first having a specific example
plot is. But that is exactly what the defender of the plot-archetype before us.

144 - Foes of Formalism Foes of Formalism - 145

 Her target, in the example I wish to discuss, is Tchaikovsky's formalism, interpretations of absolute music that treat it not just as
Fourth Symphony. McClary begins with the claim that, prior to narrative fiction, but as philosophical discourse as well. Here is one
Tchaikovsky's Fourth, symphonic form was dominated by what such example.
she calls the paradigm of adventure and conquest. But the Fourth Another American musical scholar, David P. Schroeder, hears,
Symphony of Tchaikovsky departs from that paradigm, so she in many of the great symphonies of Joseph Haydn, an expression
claims. It is, rather, a narrative about a man who is the victim of his of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment ideal ofwhat he calls 'toler-
father's expectations for him, and his 'entrapment' by a woman. ance' (and what the eighteenth century would call 'toleration').
This combination of unfortunate circumstances impedes the develo- According to him, the conclusion of the first movement of Haydn's
pment ofhis true self. The father's expectations involve, as the inter- Symphony No. 83, one of the so-called Paris Symphonies, expresses
pretation makes clear, a heterosexual relationship for the son. The a deep philosophical thesis. The thesis is that in human life there
relationship turns out to be an' entrapment' and keeps the son's true will inevitably be conflict of opinion. Furthermore, the best way to
nature, which is homosexual, from reaching fulfillment. (It certainly deal with such conflict of opinion is not through suppression, and
is a narrative 'for our times.') the establishing of dogmatic systems ofbelieffrom which no dissent
A number of difficult questions are raised by McClary's interpre- is permitted, but to 'resolve' it through toleration. That is to say,
tation of Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony. Can a work of absolute the way to resolve conflicts is not forcefully to put down dissent;
music really tell such a story? If it can, what criteria are there for it is to leave the marketplace of ideas open to all offers. Such is
determining whether it tells this story or some other story? Could the Enligtenment thesis Schroeder hears in the first movement of
Tchaikovsky really have intended his symphony to tell this story? Haydn's Symphony No. 83.
If he didn't-couldn't-intend it to tell this story, could it tell this As in the case of McClary's sexually charged interpretation of
story anyway? And, if the symphony does tell this story, can it really Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony, difficult questions are raised by
much matter to our appreciation of it? Schroeder's 'philosophical' interpretation of Haydn's No. 83. Can a
These questions are difficult because they go to the very heart work of absolute music really express such philosophical theses? !fit
of the philosophy of criticism and interpretation for all of the arts. can, what criteria are there for determining whether it expresses this
They are questions that, in other words, cannot be answered for thesis or some other thesis? Could Haydn really have intended his
music without one's taking a stand on basic questions in the philo- symphony to express this thesis? Ifhe didn't-couldn't- intend it to
sophy of art that are quite beyond the confines of an introduction express this thesis, could it express this thesis anyway? And if the
to the philosophy of music such as this one. symphony does express this thesis, can it really much matter to our
Nevertheless, we can certainly explore some possibilities here appreciation of it?
and, I think, reach some tentative conclusions, even though these The question of what control the author's intention (or lack
conclusions will fall short of the kind of closure that a broader study thereof) exerts on her works' meaning is perhaps the most argued
might achieve. But, before I begin to explore these possibilities, and about question in the philosophy of criticism, and has been for more
probe the questions just posed, I want to place before us one other than half a century. In a nutshell , the anti-intentionalists claim that
interpretation of a work of absolute music, this time of a philosoph- once, the work of art leaves the workshop, it is a 'public object' of
ical kind. For, remember, there are being touted, among the foes of scrutiny that the critic can make of what he will (as can the rest of

146 - Foes of Formalism Foes of Formalism - 147

us), regardless of the intended meaning. The intentionalist, on the overtones, of the now generally accepted biographical fact that
other hand, claims that, as the philosopher Noel Carroll puts it, the Tchaikovsky himself was homosexual. Given that, and other known
interaction of the audience with the work of art constitutes a 'con- facts of the composer's life, it is supposed to be seen as at least pos-
versation' with the artist, and conversation depends upon each of sible that Tchaikovsky could have intended to tell a story of patri-
the participants knowing what the other intends to convey by his or archal expectations and feminine entrapment in his symphony. Far
her words. If one mistakes the intentions of the other, communica- from being something that could not possibly have occurred to him,
tion has broken down: and communication is the whole point. it might well have been 'the story of my life.'
The intentionalists do not maintain, it must be cautioned, that Similarly, Schroeder tries to defend his philosophical reading of
the intention to embody meaning in a work of art will, alone, assure Haydn by, in part, trying to make it plausible to think that Haydn
that the meaning is there. One can fail, for various reasons, to could have intended to express this philosophy by, first, trying to
embody in a work, or in speech, for that matter, the meaning one show that Haydn was acquainted with the philosophical literature
intends to express (slips of the tongue being an obvious, if trivial, ofhis times. For ifhe were not, then it would seem quite implausible
example). And later on I will suggest that that is precisely why, with that he could have intended the ideas this literature contains to be
regard to absolute music, establishing the composer's intention to in his symphonies, it being quite implausible that he could have
embody meaning is not much of an argument for its being there. thought them up himself, as he was a musical genius, not a philo-
In any case, this cannot be the place to establish or argue for sophical one.
either the intentionalist or the anti-intentionalist position. All I can Now I myself find neither McClary's nor Schroeder's attempt to
do is put my own cards on the table: they are intentionalist cards. I show the possibility of intention at all plausible. I remain uncon-
am on the side of the intentionalists and believe, with Noel Carroll vinced that Tchaikovsky could really have intended to tell Mc Clary's
and others, that the meaning of works of art is directly attached to 'homosexual story' in his Fourth Symphony or Haydn to expound
the intentions of their makers, certainly in the negative sense that Schroeder's philosophical thesis in Symphony No. 83. But my readers
what the maker did not, or could not, intend a work of art to mean, will have to decide that question for themselves by reading for
it cannot mean. But, fortunately, whether or not that is so will not be themselves what McClary and Schroeder have written. Whether or
necessary for us to decide in the present context. not Tchaikovsky or Haydn could have intended their symphonies to
For what it is worth, most of the foes of formalism with whom I 'mean' what McClary and Schroeder think they did will not be an
am acquainted are also, at least judging from their practice, in the issue in these proceedings.lwhat will be an issue is whether if they
intentionalist camp. For, in their narrative and philosophical inter- had these intentions to 'mean,' they could have succeeded in making
pretations of absolute music , they frequently spend a good deal of their symphonies mean what they intended them to mean. It does
time trying to convince the reader that the composers in question not appear to me that they could have.J
really could have intended to mean by their works what these inter- McClary's narrative interpretation of Tchaikovsky's Fourth
preters hear in them. McClary and Schroeder are both cases in Symphony is, from the literary point of view, remarkably vague:
point. indeed, not much more detail is present than in the plot archetypes
McClary makes use, in the defense ofher narrative interpretation just now discussed, and probably with good reason. For to get much
of Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony, with its clearly homosexual beyond even the low level of plot detail that McClary provides

148 - Foes of Formalism Foes of Formalism - 149

would begin to case doubt on the credibility of the interpretation .
well. But that aside, it is important to bear in mind that visual rep-
But, after all, even McClary's plot requires resources of conceptual
resentations are universally recognizable. Recognizing them is,
expression absolute music may not possess.
indeed, part of our built-in' perceptual apparatus, as has been abund-
According to Mcclary, Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony tells a
antly demonstrated by experiment. (Even animals can recognize
story of patriarchal expectations and feminine entrapment. There is
representations.) Such ,., clearly not the case with musical sound,
nothing new in the description of musical themes as 'feminine' and
where representation, even within a single culture, is severely limited,
'masculine,' and nothing outrageous in claiming that one theme
and certainly not recognizable cross-culturally. Show a picture of
might be expressive of femininity, another of masculinity. One prob-
a man, a woman, a dog, a tree, to anyone, anywhere, and it will be
lem with that, however, is that it is difficult to know whether a given
immediately identified for what it is. Play Tchaikovsky's Fourth
theme is expressive of femininity or, perhaps, gentleness, or lassi-
Symphony and see how many listeners come up with patriarchal
tude, whether a given theme is expressive of masculinity or strength
expectations and female entrapment.
or aggressiveness. And being 'patriarchal' begins to stretch the
But surely, the reader must be thinking, a composer can make her
potential oftextless music. Grandfather's theme in Prokofiev's Peter
music say what she wants it to, just as l can make numbers mean
and the Wolf certainly might seem 'patriarchal'-but that is because
words and sentences in order to communicate with my friends with-
there is an accompanying text to help. Without it, 'pompous' or
out outsiders knowing what we say. This is true. It should not, how-
'grumpy' or 'ponderous' might serve equally well. (How text and
ever, be confused with 'meaning' in the sense of a negotiable, public
music combine to be expressive will be a topic of the next chapter. )
commodity. Meaning, as philosophers have been arguing for many
Furthermore, when we go from here to the concepts of 'patri-
years now, is a public, not a private, matter. And that, in general, is
archal expectations' we are beyond what music can be expressive of
true of the meaning of art as well as the meaning of conversation
and into the area of what language alone can express. To tell even
or the daily newspaper. The normal speaker and reader of English
the minimal story of a 'hero' without a name, a father who has
can read (or be read to) David Copperfield and understand the story
expectations for him, for a heterosexual relationship, in response to
reasonably well. That is what, l think, we take narrative meaning to
which expectations the hero without a name becomes entrapped by
be: understandable by a wide audience of ordinary speakers and
a wife without a name, requires nouns, verbs, adjectives-in other
readers.
words, the full resources of a language with a syntax and semantics;
To make more plain what I am saying, let us distinguish among
with, that is to say, grammar and meaning. Absolute music pos-
three different phenomena that l think the foes of formalism may
sesses neither.
tend to confuse: meaning plain and simple, private meaning or
But is it really true that one could not tell McClary's story without
code, and suppressed meaning or program.
grammar and meaning? Could one, perhaps, tell it in pictures, like a
It has become clear, in the light of historical research, that some
comic book? And might not music, as well as the visual arts, tell a
composers, and their inner circles of friends, have had private mean-
story in pictures? A sound cartoon, if you will?
ing or significance attached to certain passages in their instrumental
Well, it is doubtless true that a minimal story can be told in
works. But since these associations were not made public, and not
pictures, although one should not forget how much comic books
made part of the works in question by accompanying titles or written
and cartoon stories, and even silent cinema, rely on written text as
texts, they are best thought of as private meanings or codes, and,

150 - Foes of Formalism

Foes of Formalism - 151
 --
consequently, not part ofthe work as the composer intended it and as we _ narrative McClary ascribes to Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony,
~ss it. Ffhe work, therefore, does not mean, in the ordinary, public then it seems clear that the philosophical thesis Schroeder ascribes
sense, these private, personal thingsJ to the Haydn symphony cannot, for the same reasons, be expressed
Closely related to private meaning, or code, is what I have called by it. To expound philosophy, you need the resources of a language.
the 'suppressed' meaning or program. Program music, the nature Perhaps, then, the lesson oF tolerance that Schroeder thinks
of which we shall examine in Chapter IO, is music the composer Haydn's symphony is teaching is a private message between Haydn
issues to the public with an accompanying text, saying in words the and his cronies, or a suppressed program. That can be determined
story the music is supposed to represent or tell. Now a composer only by historical research and decisions about how, in the light of
might intend his symphony to be programmatic, to have a text, that research, one wants to constitute Haydn's work- whether, in
but, for a variety of reasons, suppress the program. This may be the other words, one might want to 'restore' the repressed program,
best way to understand, for example, some of the symphonies of the and perform it with that written text distributed to the audience. But
great twentieth-century Russian composer, Dmitri Shostakovich what the formalist, the enhanced formalist, urges is that we do not
(1906-75), whose private papers have revealed that he attached confuse a private code, or a suppressed program, with meaning
various political meanings to those works, highly critical of the properly so-called: public, negotiable meaning. That absolute music 11

Marxist-Leninist regime under which he lived, and, therefore, cannot possess.

highly dangerous to express publicly. I might, at this point, consider the matter settled, and the propon-
If we treat these political critiques as suppressed programs rather ents of strong interpretation defeated. But there is yet another very
than codes or private meanings, then what we are saying is that they persuasive general argument that seems to me to encourage deep
are to be considered legitimate parts of Shostakovich's symphonies, suspicion at least of all narrative interpretations of absolute music: it
of which we were previously ignorant but which we should now is that absolute music, to put it bluntly, is very repetitious. Repetition
add to them in accordance with the composer's real intentions. is an integral part of musical form , both internally and externally.
It is rather like discovering that a work had an additional move- By internal repetition I mean repetition within any given form.
ment or movements (say) that accidently became detached through Thus, within the movements of a symphony, passages and melodies
some accident of history: like discovering, for example, the rest of occur and reoccur periodically, making patterns in sound. Just as
Schubert's 'Unfinished' Symphony. your wallpaper or your rug repeats small designs to make the larger
Perhaps McClary's narrative is Tchaikovsky's private meaningfor ones, so too, in the movements of a symphony, the internal structure
his Fourth Symphony. Or perhaps it is a suppressed program. What is a structure of repeated musical entities: melodies, melody frag-
it cannot be, in my view, is the symphony's meaning, in the ordinary ments, or smaller musical 'motives' .
public sense in which the well-known story of David Copperfield is its. But the movements themselves are also built upon large-scale, lit-
Absolute music can't do that; only language can. eral repetitions, indicated by the musical sign: : When that sign
With these distinctions in hand, we can now, I think, turn to appears at the end of a large musical section, it indicates that the per- I
Schroeder's interpretation of Haydn's Symphony No. 83 and make former is to go back to the beginning of the section and play it over
fairly quick work of it. To start with, ifl am right that music cannot, again . Such repeats are not rare occurrences in classical music but
but only a language with a syntax and semantics can, express the I very common. Indeed, they are the essential building blocks of most

152 - Foes of Formalism Foes of Formalism - 153

.d
musical forms, during the past 300 years. Musical form, as we now is true, it can be seen that absolute music remains, in two very
know it, would be impossible without them. important respects, so different from the linguistic and pictorial arts,
Consider, now, what a typical narrative form, say the stage play, that enhanced formalism remains in place as the most cogent
would be like if it were constructed with internal and external account of its 'important' properties.
repeats of the kind about which I have just been speaking. Suppose The first respect in which ahsolute music stands apart markedly
Hamlet were constructed that way. Then, instead of saying 'To be, or from the pictorial and linguistic arts can best be explained through
not to be .. .' once, and then getting on with his life, Hamlet would the following 'thought experiment,' involving three characters
repeat, every few minutes, 'To be, or not to be . . .' .Not only that, but whom I shall call Moe, Larry, and Curly.
each act of Hamlet-it has five!- would be performed twice, the first Moe presents himself as a lover of Renaissance painting above all
act being repeated before the second act could be presented, and so other kinds. He frequents museums with well-stocked collections of
on. The absurdity of this procedure hardly needs further comment. it, and buys countless reproductions. But he suffers from an odd
But if a symphony were a fictional narrative, like Hamlet, it would perceptual deficit. He can't see representations. The only thing he sees,
be a fictional narrative with just the kinds of internal and external and enjoys, in Renaissance painting, is the beautiful patterns and
repeats we have seen would be so absurd in Shakespeare's play. It colors.
would be a fictional narrative in which the speeches or events- Larry, for his part, professes a love of German poetry. Oddly
whatever of these the melodies and melodic passages are supposed enough, he has a very large collection of German poetry recitations,
to represent- would be repeated over and over again. And it would on records and discs, but not a single book of German poetry. And
be a fictional narrative in which large segments, comparable to the that is because he does not understand a word of German! He just says
acts of a play, or chapters of a novel, would be repeated before get- that he loves the sound of it being spoken, and has no notion of what
ting on with the story. This would be as absurd in a musical narrative it means.
as in a literary one. Finally there is Curly. He is an avid listener to classical music, and
What should we conclude from this? I think the most obvious particularly favors instrumental works. He loves the sound struc-
conclusion to draw is that absolute music is not a narrative art form. ture, the harmonies, and the tone colors of the various instruments.
Narratives just don't do that. Absolute music is the fine art of repeti- But he perceives absolutely no narrative, philosophical, or other 'content' in
tiont it thrives on repetition. Were narrative fiction as repetitive as it, just as Moe perceives no representational content in paintings,
absolute music, it would not be the art of narrative fiction as we now Larry no content whatever in German poetry. The odd thing is that,
have and understand it. And were absolute music as unrepetitive as unlike Moe and Larry, Curly isn't' odd.'
narrative fiction is, it would not be the art of absolute music as we No one would say that Moe appreciates Renaissance painting, or
now have and understand it. No more, I think, need be said. But that Larry appreciates German poetry. You can't even begin to appre-
there is, however, more that I can say, in conclusion, by following a ciate the former if you are blind to representation, or begin to appre-
well-known philosophical strategy, and granting my opponents, for ciate the latter if you don't understand any German. Moe and Larry
the sake of the argument, the truth of their thesis. For, if the thesis is are very odd cases indeed (and, so far as I know, do not occur 'in life').
granted, enhanced formalism , surprisingly enough, remains pretty But Curly is far from odd. Indeed, he represents a very large group
much intact. Or, to put it in a slightly different way, even if the thesis of listeners to absolute music, some of whom are among the most

154 - Foes of Formalism Foes of Formalism - 155

sophisticated around: conductors, performers, music theorists. And satisfaction absolute music gives, or for the love and devotion it
no one would deny that these sophisticated listeners are appreciat- inspires?
ing absolute music richly, even fully, in complete ignorance of, or Think, for a moment, of the satisfaction you might get from
complete scorn for, such narrative and philosophical interpretations a novel with the same 'story' as the one McClary ascribes to
as we have just now been considering. Unlike the content of repres- Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symph:my. It clearly is not produced merely
entational painting and the narrative arts, the content of absolute by that narrative content. It is produced by the numerous incid-
music can be, and apparently is, ignored, if it is there at all, by a ents, happenings, conversations, description, character delineations,
significant number of its devotees. This difference between it and reversals of fortune, and the rest, that fill a well-written work of
the arts of representation and narrative fiction is hardly trivial: it is, fiction. It is absurd to think that any satisfaction at all could derive
indeed, absolutely stupefying, if absolute music were really an art of merely from the plot line outlined by McClary for Tchaikovsky's
narration, or of philosophical significance, in any important way. Fourth. Say that it is there, if you like; but it cannot much matter for
And this brings us to the second aspect in which music is markedly the slight (if any) satisfaction it might impart, over and above a pure
different from at least the linguistic arts and meaningful discourse, formalist reading of the work. It leaves unanswered the question of
either philosophical or what you will. why we enjoy meaningless noise, because it does not impart enough
Recall that we began this chapter by posing a question that the 'meaning' to make a difference.
foes of formalism are supposed to be addressing, namely: Why Furthermore, if one thinks the value and satisfaction we find
should anyone be interested in it-why should it merit anyone's in fictional works sometimes accrues, at least in part, in virtue of
interest- if absolute music is merely 'meaningless noise'? And isn't its expressing, through its narrative, moral or philosophical hypo-
that just what the formalist, even the enhanced formalist, says that theses and arguments, then one can hardly hold out very much hope
absolute music is: sound without significance? for musical narrative along these lines. For the poverty of narrative
The answer to this question, which we can perhaps extract that music is capable of, if it is capable of any at all, is such that
from the writings ofMclary, Schroeder, and others of their stripe, is there seems no possibility at all of its conveying anything of real
that absolute music is not sound without significance. The Fourth moral or philosophical import. To do that one requires a complex-
Symphony of Tchaikovsky's means: 'A male person tries to fulfill ity and detail of plot structure music cannot be capable of. And that
patriarchal expectations of a heterosexual relationship and ends up is plainly apparent in the emptiness of content that characterizes
being entrapped by a female person, and rendered unable to realize the musical narratives most foes of formalism produce. If even the
his true (homosexual) identity.' Haydn's Symphony No. 83 means: devotees of narrative interpretation, such as Mcclary, can give us no
'Conflict is inevitable in human life; but the best way to deal with it more than what she gives in the way of a' storyline,' then the notion
is not through dogmatism and repression; it is through tolerance.' that music can, through narrative, present anything of intellectual
Now if that is the best the foes of formalism can do to answer the interest in the way of philosophy or morals is simply a non-starter.
question of why we listen to or care about senseless noise, sound Consider again, now, the 'philosophical' thesis Schroeder ascribes
without significance, I guess my feeling is that they needn't have to Haydn's Symphony No. 83: 'Conflict is inevitable in human life;
bothered. Who could possibly be satisfied with McClary's narrative but the best way to deal with it is not through dogmatism and
or Schroeder's philosophical content as an 'explanation' for the deep repression; it is through tolerance.' A philosophy book might well

156 - Foes of Formalism Foes of Formalism - 157

begin by stating it. But it would then be followed by 300 pages of and philosophical interpretation that writers like McClary an
close analysis, argument, and examples. It is the rest of the book, not Schroeder ascribe to absolute music. For many of the musical char-
the mere statement of its thesis, that provides philosophical satis- acteristics and techniques that they allude to in absolute music, as
faction and value. But analysis and argument even the great Haydn's possible bearers of meaning, although they cannot, on my view,
music is unable to provide. So it is folly to think that, even if it could do the job the foes of formalism ask of them, can , when combined
state the thesis, it would matter very much. You cannot add the with words and (in opera) dramatic setting, do the job of enhancing
thesis to 'meaningless noise' and get anything more to enjoy than the and highlighting what meaning words and dramatic setting can
'meaningless noise' itself. And the only game in town to offer hope impart. These, and other matters relating to them, we must now
of understanding why we listen to and enjoy meaningless noise, take up.
even if it is 'meaningless' noise enhanced with the kind of meaning
that Schroeder (and McClary) impart to it, is enhanced formalism.
Thus, to sum up this last part of the argument against the foes
of formalism, even if the kinds of narrative the foes of formalism
ascribe to absolute music were there, it still is the case that, unlike
the visual arts of representation, and the narrative fictional arts, the
art of music can be, and is , appreciated by large numbers of people
who place no narrative or representational content at all on it.
Furthermore, the stories and philosophical content ascribed to
absolute music by the devotees of such musical interpretation, the
sane ones, at least, seem to have little if anything ofvalue or enjoyment
beyond what is already there in the sensuous qualities and formal
structure. In short, absolute music, unlike the representational and
narrative arts, can be fully appreciated, and has been since the
beginning, by those who hear no content in it. And the content that
responsible interpreters ascribe to it, in the form of story or philo-
sophical significance, is of such paucity that it seems to add little or
nothing in the way of value or appreciation to what is already there:
that is, expressive musical form and structure.
Of cour se there are, and always have been, the irresponsible inter-
preters. But of these we need say nothing.
Here my defense of formalism must end, and I must move on to
other matters. The first is the matter of music with words, and dra-
matic setting. And it is really most appropriate that a consideration
of this topic should follow the examination of the kind of narrative

158 ~ Foes of Formalism Foes of Formalism ~ 159

I
music are easy to locate and circumscribe historically. They begin
with two events of great importance to the history of music in the
West: the invention of musical drama, or opera, as we usually call
it; and the religious movement that hist~s call the Counter-
CHAPTER 9 Reformation. Both occurre during the last half of the sixteenth
century: in other words, during the waning days of the Renaissance

First the Words; and the beginning of what historians think of as the 'modern era' -
our era. The reader is already familiar with my penchant for intro-
ducing philosophical issues regarding music with a little history. So
Then the Music it will not be surprising that I do so again in this place.
The Counter-Reformation, in which the Catholic Church, in
the second half of the sixteenth century, tried to 'clean its own
house ,' in response to the criticisms laid upon it by the Protestant
reformers, had, of course, broad historical significance, far beyond
the significance it had for the history of music . But it did have deep
significance for the history of music and its philosophy; and that of
course is what concerns us here.
I have had occasion to remark previously that music without words The premier event in the Counter-Reformation was the C.Q_uncil
- music for instruments alone- forms but a very small part of the of Trent, a deliberative council of the Roman Church, which met
music people ordinarily listen to now, as well as what they listened in~o, Italy, between l5,5_4.JIDd_i563. Many important matters of
to in past times. Yet it has, so fa r, occupied us exclusively in this Catholic liturgy, philosophy, and theology were discussed at this
book. That is because it raises the most distinctively philosophical council, among them , the role of music in the Catholic service, and
problems; and this book, after all, is an introduction to a philosophy the form this music should take. What was principally at issue, in
of music and not anything else. regard to the music, was the intelligibility of the words. The com-
Nevertheless, the combination of words with music cannot be plaint was that the music had become overly complex and 'luxuri-
totally ignored by the philosopher of music attempting to intro- ous,' making the religious text that it was supposed to express
duce his subject. It does raise philosophical issues, and now, in this impossible for the congregation to hear or (therefore) understand.
chapter and the next, is the time to consider them , as well as some Music, the churchmen insisted, was supposed to be servant to the
related issues. text, not its master. In order to understand the nature of the com-
But, because words and music have been together for such a long plaint, and what resulted in consequence of it, we must know a little
time, and the singing of words has existed, and continues to exist, in bit about the nature of the music itself.
every culture and civilization we know, it is necessary to limit the From the late Middle Ages to the middle of the sixteenth century,
range of our discussion. In effect, though, the modern philosophical which is to say, to the late Renaissance, liturgical music had become
debates and questions surrounding the combination of words with ~d more polyP_honically complex. I have already introduced

First the Words; Then the Music ~ 161

 notes of music, the text being sung could simply not be understood
the concepts of monodic as opposed to polyphonic music in Chapter 3.
by the li stener. The religious m essage was being obliterated in the
But I now need to remind the reader of these concepts, and to
interest of musical pleasure. This, the Council ofTrent told the com-
enlarge upon them briefly.
posers, must be 'reformed.'
'Polyphony' has both a broad and a narrow sense. In the broad
Of course, one way out of the dilemma would have been to
sense, polyphonic music is any music where there are more tones
abolish polyphony altogether. Before the advent of polyphonic
sounded simultaneously than simply those of the melody. A folk
music, the musical part of the Catholic service was monodic. A
song, accompanied by simple chords on a guitar, say, would be
single melody was 'chanted' by a celebrant or by the choir. Part of
an example of polyphonic music in this broad sense. Whereas the
the Catholic service has always been sung in this manner. It is known
folk song sung by itself, without any accompaniment at all , would
to us as Gregorian Chant, because tradition assigns a major role in
be an example of 'monodic' music, and would be even if someone
its codification to Pope Gregory the First, who reigned at the end of
accompanied the song by playing the very same melody on a flute
the sixth century.
or clarinet.
The abolition of polyphony was indeed seriously contemplated
But, in the more narrow sense, 'polyphony' is music consisting of
by the Council; but in the end the music-lovers prevailed and a com-
two, three, four, or even more separate melodies, sung or played (or
promise was reached. The composers were directed to simplify
both) simultaneously. Of course, the me oa1es must be so contrived
their polyphony, and be more faithful to the rhythm and pace
that when they are played or sung together they will combine har-
of ordinary speech. In that way, the text would be understand-
moniously with one another, and sound well. But they must also
able, while there would still remain an interesting enough musical
be interesting melodies in themselves. The art of composing music
structure to pleasure the musical taste. One way of putting this,
of this kind, constructed of simultaneously sounding melodies, is
I think, is to say that what the composers were essentially being
the art of 'polyphony' in the narrow sense, in contrast to a single
told was to 'represent' human speech in musical tones, since speak-
melody, accompanied by chords, 'homophonic' music, and to single,
ing words, obviously, is the most effective way of making them
unaccompanied melodies, 'monody.'
understood.
Now, if you understand that from the late Middle Ages to almost
What makes this way oflooking at things even more plausible is
the end of the Renaissance, Catholic church music was polyphonic,
that there were others besides the princes of the Church who were,
in the harrow sense of the word , of ever increasing complexity, and
at that time, or shortly afterwards, concerned with the problem of
thickening texture , you will understand why the clerics were having
how to set words to music and still make the words understandable.
doctrinal difficulties w ith it. If you get five of your friends to recite,
We have met them before in the second chapter: the members of
all at once, but at different speeds, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, fre-
the Florentine Camerata, who were in the process of'inventing' the
quently repeating words and phrases before going on, and try to
music drama, or opera, which, you will recall, they thought of, really,
understand the text, you will have some idea of what the Council of
as a revival of the way they thought Greek drama was performed in
Trent was objecting to in the sacred music of its time. Because the
Classical times.
intertwining strands of melody, usually five at once, were all singing
Like the Council of Trent, the Camerata was highly critical of
the text at once, each melody, at any one time, singing a different
complex polyphony, in the narrow sense. The members of the
word of the text, and often prolonging a single syllable over many

First the Words; Then the Music ~ 163

162 ~ First the Words; Then the Music
Camerata were convinced, by the testimony of Plato, Aristotle, and most written-about form, in discussing it we will be discussing all,
other ancient authors, that Greek music (which, of course, they with the problem 'writ large.'
knew only through this written testimony) had had a profound Well then, what is the problem? To understand it we must return
emotional impact on its listeners. Complex polyphony- the music to a point made against the fictional interpretation of absolute music
of their own times- had, they believed, no such emotive effect. in the preceding chapter.
The cause of this, they thought, was the combination of the dif- You will recall the disanalogy I pointed out towards the end
ferent melodies, with which this music was constructed, and which of Chapter 8 between the repetitiousness of music as opposed to
tended, so to speak, to 'garble' the emotive message. Like the the ongoing, directional character of fictional narrative. This dis-
Council, but in far more explicit terms, they urged upon composers analogy is the crux of the opera problem, and the problem, as well,
the task of representing the human speaking voice. But, where of almost all music with text.
the Council stuck with a 'moderated' polyphony, in the narrow The repeating of musical material-both internally and externally
sense, the Camerata went for a very different sort of thing entirely: - is what gives absolute music its shape. It is what gives it closure
something close to monody; a harmonically accompanied musical and inner structure. The so-called closed musical forms are consti-
'declamation,' hardly a 'melody' at all, sung by a single performer, tuted by the occurrence and subsequent reoccurrence of melodies,
following closely the cadence and tone of emotional speech. T hus: a melody fragments, and whole sections. An example here would
lone singer, a single melody, a completely intelligible emotive 'mes- help.
sage' at any given point in the performance.j The simplest and perhaps the most immediately satisfying
What the Camerata developed, then, was essentially the repres- closed musical form is the ABA pattern: in other words, a large self-
entation, in music, of huruan_comr.ers tion. And this musical con- contained section of music, a second contrasting, self-contained sec-
versation was to form the basic structure of the first music dramas, tion, and the repeat, either literal or modified, of the first section.
which they sometimes called dramma per musica, and which became Many kinds of musical composition exhibit this pattern, from large
what we know as 'opera.' symphonic movements to popular ballads. Other patterns feature
Now opera, the theatrical staging of musical drama, was, from a regular return of the first section: ABACADA ... etc. And there
the start, a controversial artistic endeavor, and continues to be to this are many more musical patterns that illustrate the basic fact that
day. The attempt to fit music to words and stories, or, if you like it the musical form is a function of musical repetition.
other way round, the attempt to fit words and stories to music, is There's the rub, though. For narrative fiction, as we have seen,
problematic just because, as I argued in the last chapter, absolute does not, for the most part, repeat itself. It is not cyclical, like mus-
music is crucially different in form from the literary and dramatic ical form; rather, it is linear, one directional: it moves towards a goal,
arts. Opera is only the extreme case of the problem. Whether we are without doubling back on itself(although its movement towards the
talking about setting the words of a simple poem or lyric, the setting goal may be complicated by 'flashbacks' and by beginning in the
of the Catholic mass, or the setting of unstaged drama, which is middle of the story, in medias res, as the ancient writers described
called oratorio, it is the same problem: making musical and literary the procedure). And that directional flow is what causes the 'prob-
aesthetics compatible when inherently they are not. But, because lem of opera,' and, to varying degrees, the problem of setting any
opera presents the problem in its most extreme, most visible, and text to music.

164 - First the Words; Then the Music First the Words; Then the Music - 165
 The very first operas, at the beginning of the seventeenth cen-
composed at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The great-
tury, were constructed of just the kind of monody of which I have
est practitioner of this art was the great Italian composer Claudio
now been speaking. These operas were, in effect, 'conversations in
Monteverdi (1567- 1643). He is credited with having composed the
tones' : not so much music, but musical. The cadence and tone of
first operatic masterpiece, Orfeo (1607); and his only other surviving
emotional sp~ech were represented with great faithfulness- the
operas (he wrote approxim2.' ly ten), The Return of Ulysses to his
most successful project of its kind in the history of music.
Homeland (1641) and The Coronation of Poppea (1642), are still, along
Yet a heavy price was paid for making speech the master and
with Orfeo, performed with great success. But, as great as these
music the slave. For just because language does not have musical
works for the musical stage are- and they are great works- they fail
form, the musical representation of it cannot either. The price the
to provide the 'solution' to the 'opera problem' just because they fail
so-called stile rappresentativo, the 'representational style' of the early
to give musical form, with its internal and external repetitions, to
opera, paidfur its faiiliful;ss to human speech was its forfeiture of
the 'musical speech' that they largely consist in.
musical form : forfeiture of the 'closed' forms of music, with their
But, while the great Monteverdi continued reaping the harvest of
necessary repetitions, which give us so much of the pleasure and
early, stile rappresentativo music drama in the first forty years of the
satisfaction we call 'musical. ' Of course, we are not dealing with
seventeenth century, a very different form of musical drama was
'absolutes' here. The operas of which I am speaking did possess
developing, which reached its culmination in the first thirty years of
some 'closed' musical movements: short songs, choruses, and move-
the eighteenth century, in the operas of the great German composer
ments for instruments. But the driving force, the altogether domin-
Georg Frideric Handel, who occupied the seemingly paradoxical
ant feature, was the' conversation in tones,' the stile rappresentativo.
position of a German composer, writing Italian opera for an English
That being the case, whatever pleasures and satisfactions early
audience. (He made his home, from 1710 to the end of his life, in
opera could provide, and indeed still does provide, which are many
London.) This form of opera, known as ~a , was, unlike the
and deep, true musical pleasures, the pleasures and satisfactions of
music drama of the stile rappresentativo, a highly successful, as well as
absolute musical forms, it could not and cannot give, except in its
highly controversial, compromise between the demands of drama,
'peripheral' aspects.
and those of absolute music.
The problem of opera was, and always has been, the problem
Opera seria, as can easily be inferred from its Italian name, was
of making some sort of accommodation between pure musical
Italian opera, even though it flourished in many countries besides
form, with all of its necessary repetitions in place, and fictional
Italy, composed by non-Italians as well as Italians; and was always
drama, given its non-repetitious, one-directional character. It is a
on serious subjects, usually drawn either from ancient history or
problem, really, that cannot be solved, but that, at various times, has
from ancient and medieval legend. Opera seria is a form of ' ~
resulted in deeply satisfying if unstable solutions. And I think the
opera': that is to say, opera consisting of separate, self-contained
problem itself can better be understood ifwe take a look at what two
musical movements, 'numbers,' connected by a very rapid musical
of the most satisfactory solutions have been.
speech, accompanied by the harpsichord, which pushed the plot
It would be a good idea first to understand the time frame. The
forward. The musical movements, or numbers, in opera seria were
first operas, the kind in which speech was closely followed by the
almost exclusively rias, which is to say songs for a single singer,
so-called stile rappresentativo, the representational style, were being
acco~panied by an orchestra. The idea was that the opera could

166 - First the Words; Then the Music

First the Words; Then the Music - 167
 serve two masters at once. The rapid speechlike music, called secco because the music is made to conform to the emotions being
recitative, literally 'dry' recitative, because of its lack of expressive expressed by the character, by being expressive of those emotions
character, as close to speech as music can get without ceasing to be itself: alternately, love, jealousy, and love again.
music, provided a musical conversation that essentially told the But the da capo aria, as satisfying as it was (and still is) from
audience what was happening, as dialogue and monologue would the purely musical point of view, eventually came to be seen as
in spoken drama. The arias, on the other hand, occurred at points problematic from the dramatic side, from the side, that is, of
where it was logical for one of the characters to step forth and dramatic realism. For, it was argued, people expressing their emo-
express his or her emotional reaction to what was happening: anger, tions or thoughts in life do not express them in ABA form. They do
fear, love, or whatever. But, unlike the secco recitative, the arias were not, in other words, repeat themselves in musical form. There is
perfect, closed musical forms, almost always in the ABA patten;. seldom a da capo in human discourse. Nor are emotions, in life, ex-
Thus, the opera seria provided a solution to the problems both of perienced in the kind of static way that the da capo aria expresses
how musical drama could conform to the demands of linguistic them. The da capo aria dwells on emotions; in life emotions rush
expression and of how it could conform to the demands of pure on unchecked.
musical form. It simply put them into separate compartments, and In the heyday of opera seria, and, particularly, in the operas of
joined the compartments together in a temporal chain. It obviously Handel and his contemporaries, these criticisms were unfounded .
must have been a deeply satisfying solution. It lasted more than a For the da capo aria in the operas of Handel, during the first thirty or
century, and operas in this form by Handel and Mozart are still per- forty years of the eighteenth century, was, in its way, both perfectly
formed today to enthusiastic audiences. suited to how the emotions were understood, philosophically, and,
But the opera seria solution to the problem of opera was, I sug- at the same time, perfectly suited to the kinds of characters that
gested earlier, an unstable solution. The instability lay in its most populated these operas. The theory of emotions was, at this time, as
unstable part, the aria, about which I must now speak briefly. we have observed in Chapter 2, the Cartesian one: that is to say, the
The vast majority of arias in traditional opera seria are known as l{a theory t~t Rene Descartes had put forward in 1649, in his Passions of
~ caoana . This is because their tripartite design, ABA, is achieved by the Soul. The emotions were seen as somewhat static, limited in
literally rel? eating the first section of the aria after the second section number, and, therefore, well suited to expression in the somewhat
has ended (although the singer was expected to add embellishments static musical pace of the da capo aria.jFurthermore, the characters
to her part the second time through, for variation). The end of the in the operas, kings, queens, knights, ladies, magicians, temptresses,
second section bears the instruction (in Italian) da capo, literally, gods and goddesses, are all, as it were, larger than life and emotion-
'from the head,' or, in other words, 'from the beginning.' A typical ally obsessive as well as 'overwrought.' In other words, they are just
da capo aria, then, consists of a first section, in which a certain the kinds of characters that would express their emotions in static,
emotion, say love, is expressed by a character in the drama, a second stately form, and in an obsessively repetitive way. Their mode of
section in which a contrasting but related emotion is expressed, expression is no more inappropriate to the da capo aria than verse is
say jealousy, and then a literal repeat of the first section, making a inappropriate to Shakespeare's kings.
perfectly satisfying, unified ABA form. It is also satisfying from a But, after all, theories of the emotions change, as does musical
dramatic point of view, from the point of view of verisimilitude, taste. The last half of the eighteenth century saw a revolution in

168 - First the Words; Then the Music First the Words; Then the Music - 169
emotive theory and a revolution in opera along with it. A new solu- only to feel pleasure and pain, and the emotions are the result of our
tion to the problem of opera was called for, and forthcoming. associating various things with pleasure or pain.
First, the new theory of the emotions. It emerged in Britain, Envy, to take an example, is a feeling of pain at the accomplish-
out of a theory of psychology based on the 'assoGiation of ideas.' ments or good fortune of someone else. But I am capable of envy,
f\ssociationism' was an attempt to understand how human con- possess it as part of my emotiv., 'repertoire,' only if at some time
sciousness works. The notion was that a person's consciousness is a someone's accomplishments or good fortune caused me pain: for
train of ideas, and that it is possible to know how this train proceeds: example, that person won a tennis tournament I very much wanted
that is, to know why one idea and not another has followed an idea to win myself. If that happens, then whenever he, or someone else,
currently present to the mind. An example will make plain what the accomplishes something that I want to accomplish, that is asso-
associationist psychology was about. ciated in my mental train with pain, and pain is what I will feel upon
When I think of Chinese food I frequently think right after that viewing the accomplishments of other people, if I am an envious
of my best friend in high school. That is because the first time I person. On the associationist's view, envy is just, by definition, pain
ever ate Chinese food was with her. Of course I don't always think of felt at the prospect of other people's accomplishments or good
her. Often, when I think of Chinese food, I think right after that of fortune .
jury duty. That is because in Manhattan, where I live, the court hous- The story just told about envy can be told, the associationist
es are right next to China Town; and when one has jury duty, one insists, for any of the other emotions. Each is a propensity to feel
tends to have Chinese food for lunch. Thus, the idea of Chinese food pain, or pleasure, in some determining situation that makes it the
has become 'associated' in my mind with the idea of my best friend emotion it is; and each is acquired by association with the feeling
in high school, and with jury duty. And these associations explain either of pleasure or of pain.
why just now I thought of my friend or thought of jury duty. It is But, just as associations are many, varied, and highly personal-
because just before that I happened to think of Chinese food, and your associations are yours, mine are mine- the associationist's emo-
these associations were in place. You, of course, will probably have tions are not, like the Cartesian's, hard-edged and discrete. Rather,
different associations from mine with the idea of Chinese food, they are vague, blurry around the edges, and fade into one another.
so your train of ideas, in that respect, will be different from mine. Furthermore, they are constantly changing, not static, innate, set
Nevertheless, the associationist psychologist will tell us, every idea pieces, like the Cartesian ones. That is because we never cease to
that you or I get is the result of a previous idea, and an 'association' acquire new associations, so our emotions, being built up of asso-
with it. ciations, are in continual flux. Finally, the whole associationist pic-
Emotions, on the associationist view, are very different from the ture suggests an emotive life of rapid change, of fleeting, evanescent
Cartesian emotions in four important respects that are the result of emotional states, as opposed to the Cartesian model of sluggish,
how the associationist thinks the emotions are acquired. Indeed, stable emotions that must run their course before others can take
that the associationist thinks the emotions are acquired, rather their place.
thauinrn~_te , is the first difference. For, on the Cartesian view, we are One can readily see that the da capo aria, with its stately, deliberate
hard-wired, as we would say, with basic emotions- six, according ABA pattern, was ideally suited to represent in music the emotive
to Descartes- whereas the associationist thinks we are hard-wired set pieces of the Cartesian psychology. An emotion runs its course in

170 - First the Words; Then the Music First the Words; Then the Music - 171
the first section, and comes to a full close. A second, related emo- emotions. To understand this let us first remind ourselves what the
tion runs its musical course in the second section and comes to a general outlines of sonata form are.
full close. And then the first section, with its emotion, returns to You will recall that a sonata-form movement consists of three
close the circle. A perfect match between emotional reality, as the sections: an exposition, in which the themes of the movement are
Cartesian saw it, and musical form has been achieved in the da capo presented; a development, in which these themes are varied, 'worked
aria, and the opera seria in which it is the major player. 0 era at its out,' in effect 'played with' by the composer, in whatever ways style
best in its ideal form , is what I like to call 'drama-made-music.' The dictates and his creative imagination suggests; and a recapitulation,
opera seria and the da capo aria, in the age of the Cartesian psycho- in which the original themes are presented, usually (but not always)
logy, achieved that ideal state. in the same order as in the exposition, but varied as to key, to make a
But the gradual change in people's ideas about what emotions proper close. For, whereas the exposition (usually) moves the music
and the emotive life are like made opera seria, and the da capo aria, to the dominant key, the recapitulation must return to the tonic, the
seem very remote from life- a poor musical representation. It is original key, to achieve a satisfying and conclusive musical resolution.
this fact, I think, more than the so-called absurdity of a character I hope the reader has not failed to notice that in one very obvious
repeating what she had already said when the A section of the da and important respect sonata form and da capo aria form are the
capo aria returns, that made the opera seria obsolete, and urged com- same. They both exhibit a tripartite, ABA pattern, although in the da
posers on to other operatic forms. As long as we have music, after capo aria the return of A is literal, whereas in sonata form it is altered,
all, we will have repetition. The challenge is to make the repetition in the way just now described. They are both closed forms , with
con ruent with dra~c which in opera usually means emotive, clearly discernible patterns that completely satisfy our pure musical
similitude. 'sense.'
Who knows whether the new direction opera took was an But sonata form, as I have said, presents a broader and more
example of art imitating life or life imitating art? In either case, a varied musical canvas than the basically monothematic da capo aria.
musical form emerged in the second half of the eighteenth century It is, therefore, capable of reflecting, musically, the broader, more
that matched the new associationist psych_<:>~gy as neatly as the varied emotive canvas of the associationist psychology. Sonata form
da capo aria had matched the Cartesian. It was what is called 's>~ta can present, in its exposition, three or more themes, expressive of
fo ' and'we have spoken of it a little early on. different emotions. The development can increase the expressive
Sonata form, which was the form that many if not most move- palette even further. The associationist picture of the emotive life is
ments took in the major instrumental works of the late eighteenth of a quickly changing, moving panorama of emotions. It is just this
century, and the nineteenth century as well, was very different from kind of dynamic emotive experience, not the stately, static Cartesian
da capo aria form in many respects: but in one in particular that is one that sonata form is ideally suited to represent in music.
most relevant here. The sections of a da capo aria are almost always The simultaneous presence of sonata form and the associationist
monothematic and, to coin a phrase, mono-emotive: the first sec- psychology, then, pointed opera in a new direction, although with
tion is based on one theme, expressive of one emotion, the second the same old purpose: to achieve staged drama in musical closed
section again based on one theme, again, expressive of one emotion. form: drama-made-music, as I have been calling it. But another cir-
But sonata form presents a broader canvas of themes and (therefore) cumstance came into play as well . And I turn to that now.

172 - First the Words; Then the Music First the Words; Then the Music - 173
 You will recall that the basic structure of the opera seria is a string 939 measures-a good twenty minutes of continuous music with-
of arias joined by the 'song-speech' calledsecco recitative, that is, 'dry' out a break for recitative. And, although you will not find in it a strict
recitative. The arias are static points where the action stops and a adherence to sonata form (which you will find in other of Mozart's
character expresses his or her emotion in musical, ABA form. The dramatic ensembles, such as the Trio in the first act of Figaro, and the
arias are the real music of opera seria. The secco recitative is borderline Sextet in the third), you will rr.rngnize in it what Charles Rosen calls
music-' music' of little if any musical interest. ffhe paradox is that the 'sonata principle,' which is to say,rrhe sense of a progression to
where there is action there is no music, and where there is music the dominant key, and a sense of return, a 'feeling' of recapitulation,
there is no action. That, in essence, is opera seria's solution to the if not, literally, the thing itseltjTo sustain an operatic ensemble of
'problem of opera.j this length and of this complexity and of this variety of emotional
But, the theoreticians and lovers of drama-made-music will ask states, one required a psychology to make it seem a possible course
(and did ask), cannot we have it both ways? Cannot we have music of human events, and a musical form to 'represent' it. The former
where there is no action and music where there is action as well? The was provided by the associationist psychology, the latter by sonata
answer is 'Yes.' And this gift was given to us by Wolfgang Amadeus form. Together they constituted the second 'perfect' solution to the
Mozart (1756-5n), in the form of what we call' dramatic ensemble,' 'problem of opera.'
of which he is the universally acknowledged master. I put 'perfect' in quotation marks, 'scare quotes,' as philosophers
The great American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein call them, to remind the reader of something I said a while ago about
once pointed out that in opera, unlike spoken drama, 'everybody 'solutions'-there are those scare quotes again- to the opera prob-
can "talk" at the same time.' (His remark, as I recall, was directly lem. I said they were ' unstable.' Another way of saying that is to say
aimed at Mozart.) This, of course, is the principle on which vocal there is no perfect solution to the problem of opera: to the problem
polyphony (in the narrow sense) is based, and which the dramatic of having something that is both music and staged drama, with all the
ensemble exploits. (There was no Council of Trent, in the eight- things both of those art forms imply.
eenth century, to forbid it! ) At this point I would like to introduce a somewhat artificial
In Mozart's great comic operas-for it was in comedy that the _ but useful distinction between what I shall call 'opera'
'-- ........._
and ......___....___..
'music
dramatic ensemble first became a ma.iQ!" player-large sections of ~ma.' It is not strictly observed in people's ordinary talk about
the plot are played out i; a~ontinuous musical f~bric in which three, such things, or the talk of the experts either. But it is , l think, inform-
four, five, or even more characters take part. This does not mean ally observed, and will serve a good purpose.
that they need all sing together all of the time. Characters can enter, By' opera' l shall mean those kinds of musical theater in which an
exit, sing alone, or in twos and threes, and so forth. But the point is attempt is made to preserve the closed musical forms and still main-
that the music is continuous, with no break for secco recitative, and tain some acceptable degree of dramatic and (especially) emotive
can advance the plot by the musical dialogue, and the comings and verisimilitude: dramatic and emotive 'realism.' (In a moment I will
goings within the ensemble. introduce the term 'music drama' for something else. ) Handel's and
The crowning achievement of this kind of operatic ensemble is, I Mozart's operas are examples of'opera' in my sense of the word. For
think everyone would agree, the finale of Act II of Mozart's Marriage both composers tried to preserve the closed musical forms, da
ofFigaro, in which eight characters participate, and which consists of capo and sonata form, while contriving to make those forms 'fit' the

174 - First the Words; Then the Music First the Words; Then the Music - 175
prevailing psychologies of their day (whether they were consciously solution of closed musical forms interspersed with recitative or
aware of the psychological theories or, as is more probable, were speech. It is for this solution that I have reserved the name 'music
intuitively aware of them as part of their general intellectual and drama,' not without some precedent in ordinary speech and the
social backgrounds). history of music.
Opera, however, even in these 'perfect' solutions, remained a Two splendid 'expe:"iments' in music drama were performed in
controversial art form. Many people could not (and still cannot) the eighteenth century, one a failure, the other a notable success but
accept the 'absurdities,' so called, of a drama where characters without future progeny. The failure was an odd sort of work for the
sing to each other in closed, repetitive movements, and then revert stage known as 'melodrama.' The aesthetic thinking behind it is
to an equally 'absurd' song-speech, secco recitative, which is neither something like this. The villain in opera- what makes it 'absurd'-
music nor speech, just to get out of the way, as it were, all of the is the spectacle of dramatic characters conversing in musical tones,
events that there is no time to sing, or can't be sung, that motivate instead of speech. So let's, instead, have the characters speak their
the plot. lines, while accompanied by a background of music expressive of
For composers to whom these so-called 'absurdities' really were what is being spoken. Melodrama was invented in France, and flour-
unacceptable, two courses lay open: one, to tinker with operatic ished very briefly in Germany. It failed, though, to satisfy the craving
form in the hope of ameliorating if not totally removing the for real music that, after all, is the driving force of all musical theater
'absurdities'; the other, to reject the 'problem of opera' altogether worthy of the name, and the music of melodrama was merely a kind
and strike out in a different (not, as we shall see, totally new) direc- of musical background noise. But melodrama did actually survive
tion. What the tinkerers came up with was, essentially, a halfway in two rather different ways. It survived as a techni ue in opera
house between sung opera and spoken drama: it is called ing~ to supplement recitative and the closed musical forms, and is used,
in German, literally sing- talk,~ o era in English, o~ue for example, by Beethoven in one of the crucial scenes in Fidelio,
in French. The compromise was that the closed musical forms , aria to accentuate a dramatic moment.
and ensemble, should remain intact, but that the dialogue , instead But melodrama survives in our own day, really, in the most
ofbeing sung in recitative, would be spoken. influential of twentieth-century art forms, t~. For, both in the
This kind of musical theater seemed particularly suited to the silents, and in talkies, movies have, with few ~ceptions, been
popular taste , witness the ' operettas' of Gilbert and Sullivan, as well accompanied by music. The reasons for this are not altogether clear,
as, in our own times, the 'Broadway musical. ' But it also took the and cannot be gone into here. However, the failure of melodrama to
form of serious drama, of which Ludwig van Beethoven's Fidelio is satisfy the yearning for a truly musical drama is underlined by its
the most famous and frequently performed example. success in the movies. Because, whatever its success in the movies
Whether, however, opera in which characters sometimes sing amounts to does not make the movies musical theater, and no one
and sometimes speak is any less 'absurd' than those in which they perceives them as such .
sing throughout- if, that is, you think opera 'absurd' in the first The second splendid eighteenth-century 'experiment' in 'music
place-is questionable. And those who do find opera an 'absurd' art drama' (as I am using that term) was executed by the German com-
form, either half-sung or all sung, are inclined to seek another solu- poser Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714- 87) . Gluck was frequently
tion entirely to the problem of musical drama than the operatic referred to, and still is, as the man who 'reformed' Italian opera seria.

176 - First the Words; Then the Music First the Words; Then the Music - 177
 'commentator' on the dramatic events; a kind of 'Greek chorus'
The most famous ofhis so-called reform operas, Orfeo ed Euridice, is
without words.
very popular, and still frequently performed. But the two most fully
Second, the m ore elaborate character that accompanied recitat-
realized examples, Iphigenia in Aulis and Iphigenia in Taurus, both
ive took on, now that it had the full resources_of the orchestra, rather
based on Greek myths surrounding the onset and aftermath of the
than the thin support of the harpsichord, provided the composer
Trojan War, are, unfortunately, seldom mounted. (They are, by the
with an additional, and powerful dramatic tool. The orchestra could
way, settings of French, not Italian texts.)
be used to emphasize dramatic and emotional points in the recit-
The two Iphigenias are not 'revolutionary' works of art, in the way
ative text in ways that the simple chordal accompaniment of the
that melodrama is. Rather, they make use of all the resources of
harpsichord could not possibly duplicate.
opera that were available to Gluck. But, by radically changing the
Finally, as accompanied recitative possesses real musical value
dimension of opera's inner components, especially recitative and
and interest, its exclusive presence is ~al plus for musical
aria, Gluck produced something close to what I want to call music
theater.. That is simple arithmetic, which applies even to work~
drama, without, in the process, giving up entirely the closed musical
art.
forms. Cluck's second innovation in his 'reform' operas was the drastic
One of Cluck's major 'reforms' was the elimination of secco~
curtailing of the aria's musical dimensions. The da capo aria, and
ative: the rapid 'tone-talk' interposed between the arias, and accom-
other 'luxurious' aria forms, must inevitably slow the pace of the
panied by the harpsichord. What now did the work for it was what
drama. By reducing the length of the arias to almost 'songlike' size,
is known as 'a~pani ed recitative.' In traditional opera seria there
Gluck thereby increased the dramatic pace. No longer was there
was a kind of middle ground , which I have not mentioned before,
such a marked disparity between recitative and aria. In short, the
between secco recitative and aria, accompanied by the full orchestra,
musical fabric of Cluck's last operas began to follow the pace of
and saved for moments of heightened emotional tension. It still
ordinary conversation more closely than anything on the musical
maintained a speechlike musical declamation; but it was much
stage (w ith the exception of the short-lived melodrama) since the
closer to real song than the rapid 'parlando' of secco recitative. Also, the
early operas of the stile rappresentativo .
orchestral accompaniment was far more elaborate and responsive
What, in effect, Cluck's two Iphigenias were approaching was
to the text than the simple chordal accompaniment of the harpsi-
what
. is sometimes called 'throu h-composed' ...___ music.........___
drama , which
chord. Accompanied recitative, therefore, had real musical attrac-
is to say, a musical setting of the text in which there are no external
tions, unlike the 'let's-get-it-over-with,' throwaway character of
or internal repeats at all. As the text unfolds, new music unfolds
secco recitative. along with it. There is never a pause for arias or other of the closed
There were, from the 'reformers' point of view, three advantages
musical forms. The drama is a seamless musical web even to the
extent of avoiding cadences- that is to say, musical resting place~.
to the replacement of secco with accompanied recitative. First, it
e!lminated the discontinuity many people felt, and still feel, between
The master of this form of writing for the musical stage, which is
the aria, accompanied by full orchestra, and the secco recitative,
the most completely realized example of what I have been calling
accompanied only by the harpsichord. For now, with accompanied
'music drama,' was the great German composer Richard Wagner
recitative holding exclusive rights, the musi~al fabric is a continu-
(1813-83) .
ous orchestral fabric: the orchestra h as become the ever-present

First the Words; Then the Music - 179

178 - First the Words; Then the Music
 It is an exaggeration to say that there are no internal repeats in opera,' as well as no other art form so consistently lampooned,
Wagner's most imposing music drama, the Ring of the Nibelungen, ridiculed, satirized, and generally just plain laughed at.
which gave the phrase 'of Wagnerian length' its meaning in our The source of these passions lies, I am convinced, in the deep
language. It is, in fact, four separate music dramas; and Wagner divide that separates the literary and visual arts, on the one hand,
knit them together, musically, with what are called 'leitmotifs': from absolute music on the other, of which I spoke in the previous
musical phrases and fragments associated with particular char- chapter. As great a 'pure' musical mind as Wagner possessed, and
acters, ideas, and events in the plot, which occur and reoccur, perio- even his enemies cannot deny him that, the Ring, for m any music-
dically, to represent or emphasize dramatic events. These leitmotifs lovers, does not satisfy the 'pure' musical craving. And, as for the
do, indeed, lend a kind of continuous symphonic texture to the two universally acknowledged masters of opera, as I use that term,
work. Nevertheless, the leitmotifs never literally repeat them- Mozart and Giuseppe Verdi (1813- 1901), they, for their part, do not
selves, as Wagner has endlessly ingenious ways of altering the har- fully satisfy the 'pure' dramatic craving of the sophisticated theater-
monies that accompany them, to suit the dramatic situation. And goer. Even for someone who can accept drama in verse , the step to
the overall impression is of a musical fabric that faithfully follows drama in closed musical forms is a difficult one and, for many,
the meaning and emotive import of the words and events . It is a impossible.
seamless musical fabric in which the orchestra-a giant one by the But these brief, summary remarks on the problems of opera and
standards of Wagner's day-is the principal player. Needless to say, music drama do not yet, for our purposes, close the book on either
closed musical for ms such as aria or dramatic ensemble are totally the question of 'literary' music in general, or musical theater in par-
rejected. ticular. And, in order fo r that book to be closed, we must go on to
In an obvious way Wagner's idea of music drama was not new, talk about another attempt to bridge the gap between the arts of
but, in effect, a return to the earliest conception of musical theater, content and the art of absolute music. That will occupy us in the
as envisioned by the Florentine Camerata. It was opera, as I am using next chapter.
that term, with its attempt to reconcile drama with closed musical
form, and with internal and external repetition, that was the innova-
tion. However that may be, the division between opera and music
drama is remarkable in its propensity for generating dispute, not
just among theoreticians, composers, critics, and even philosophers,
but among the public of music-lovers as well . There are music-lovers
who can't abide the 'absurdities' of the musical theater at all, in par-
ticular, the 'spectacle' of conversation in music. But even among
those who can accept that premise, there is a remarkable differ-
ence in tastes that seems irreconcilable and even, at times, violent.
Wagner's music, in particular, has a tendency to generate either
frenzied devotion or outright disgust. And, on the other side, there
is no more fanatically committed audience than that for 'grand

180 - First the Words; Then the Music First the Words; Then the Music - 181
 in the music and so recognize the music's appropriateness to that
text.
But this is not to say that composers have restricted themselves
only to the emotive properties of music in setting texts, nor that the
expression of emotions is 1:1'~ only thing the texts they set do. Far
CHAPTER IO
from it. An example here will help.
Mozart's Marriage ofFigaro is about estranged couples who, in the
Narration end, resolve their differences, and come together. The resolution of
their differences occurs in the last few measures of the opera. And

and Representation Mozart 'represents' this resolution by, at nearly the very end, taking
the music from the key of G major to the key in which the opera
began, D major. As a musician might say, Mozart 'resolves' finally to
the key of D. So, in a fairly obvious sense, it at least seems as if
Mozart has used his music in this place as a representational art. But
is that really so? Can music really be a 'representational' art in the
true sense of that word? And what is the true sense, anyway.
Let us begin by distinguishing two kinds of representation. I shall
I have emphasized in the previous chapter the role of music's ex- call them 'pictorial representation' and, for want of a better term,
pressive properties in the setting of operatic texts. There is good 'structural representation.' An example of pictorial representation is
reason, I think, why the expressiveness of music has been such a the Mona Lisa: an example of structural representation is the resolu-
major player in opera, and in other forms of music, in the modern tion to D major in The Marriage ofFigaro . What's the difference?
Western tradition, where words are sung. The reason is this. In pictorial representation, I shall say, following the concept and
The expressive properties of music, within a certain narrow range, terminology of the British philosopher Richard Wollheim, that we
as we have seen, are clearly discernible to all listeners. (I am speaking 'see in' the picture the lady's face. The analogous concept in music
here, of ~ourse, only of Western music, and listeners practiced in would be 'hearing in.' But we don't 'hear in' Mozart's resolution to
listening to it.) Because of that, they-the expressive properties- D major the three couples resolving their differences and coming
provide the most dependable, the most reliable, material for a com- together. People resolving their differences doesn't sound, and can't
poser trying to make her music appropriate to her text. For, because be heard in the music. What happens here is that we hear and per-
the emotive properties of music are so readily, so universally, recog- ceive in the music a structural.analogy to_the resolving of differences
nized by even the most naive listeners, the composer can be sure among the couples: hence my term 'structural representation.' And
that the appropriateness of music to text will be recognized. Just as there is no doubt that without words and dramatic setting we would
long as the text expresses one of the emotions that music can be not, and certainly would not be entitled to, construe the resolution
expressive of, then, if the composer makes the music expressive of to D major as a representation of the couples resolving their differ-
that emotion, all listeners in our culture will recognize the emotion ences (or a representation of anything else, for that matter).

Narration and Representation ~ 183

 This latter point suggests a second distinction: that between cuckoo's, come to mind. Beethoven represented bird calls in his
pictorial representations where what is 'seen in' the picture can be Sixth Symphony, the Pastoral. But we know from the title of the
seen in without the aid of words and what can be seen in only if we work and the titles of its movements to expect such things; and the
have a hint from some accompanying text or title. Anyone can see composer even writes the names of the birds whose calls he is repres-
the woman's face in the Mona Lisa without being told that it is a enting in the score.
portrait of a lady. But there is a beautiful painting by the British artist The twentieth-century French composer Arthur Honegger
J.M. W Turner (1775- 1851) in which we can see a sunset in the paint- (1892- 1955) wrote a famous piece for orchestra called Pacific 231. A
ing only if we know the title: Sunset over Lake. We really do 'see in' 'Pacific' is a kind of steam railway locomotive, and Honegger's com-
the picture the sunset over the lake-only, however, when we know position represents the sound of the engine starting up, barrelling
the title. Without the words there would be no 'seeing in': only along at top speed, slowing down, and finally coming to rest. It is
the impression of a non-representational color composition. For as close to an example of unaided pictorial representation as I have
obvious reasons, then, I shall distinguish between what I call 'aided' ever encountered in music. People who remember what a railway
and 'unaided' pictorial representations: those that require words steam locomotive sounds like usually, in my experience, recognize
for 'seeing in' and those that do not. without textual help what the music represents. But even they at
Here two interesting questions arise. Is music capable of pictorial least need to be told they are hearing a representation of some-
representations at all, and, if so, is it capable of unaided as well as thing. And, anyway, such examples are so hard to come up with
aided ones? We have seen already that it seems capable of structural that it is probably best to give up the point and admit that unaided

~
--
representation. And I am going to assume that structural representa-
- - --
tion, at lea~t in music i!_ ~lways aided. That is to say, we can never
pictorial representation in music is, if possible at all, too rare a phe-
nomenon to be counted as belonging to music's repertoire of
determine that there is structural representation in music without a aesthetic possibilities.
text or title- without words - to make us perceive the structural Aided pictorial representations, however, are another matter
analogy. entirely. They seem to abound. Here are some examples, drawn
Now visual pictorial representations represent what is seen: we see from fairly well-known compositions. They are of two kinds: pictor-
the woman in the Mona Lisa . Likewise, pictorial representations in iaLre.presentations of natural or man-made sounds, and pictorial
music, I if indeed there are any, represent what is heard: we hear in representations of musical sounds; that is, musical representations
the music whatever it pictorially represents. So it seems clear that of music.
pictorial representations, if any, in music, must be representations Some pictorial representations of natural sound events I have
of sounds. This does not mean music cannot represent other things already adduced: Beethoven's representations ofbirdsongs--quail,
besides sounds, or paintings things other than sights. But they can't cuckoo, nightingale- in his Pastoral Symphony. Other examples
repres~t_them pictorially. from that work are the pictorial representations of a thunderstorm,
Not very much sober reflection is required to conclude that, if with loud musical crashes and drum rolls, and the pictorial repres-
music is capable of pictorial representation at all, of the unaided entation of a gently meandering stream with a continuous 'flowing'
kind, it must be a very limited capability indeed. For it is very hard to melody in the strings. As for man-made sound events, there is, for
come up with any real, incontestable examples. Bird calls, like the example, Schubert's pictorial representation of a spinning wheel's

184 - Narration and Representation Narration and Representation - 185

whirring sound, in the piano accompaniment of his song 'Gretchen is not that sense of perceiving in the musical representation what
at the Spinning Wheel,' and, in Beethoven's opera Fidelio, the repres- is represented there, as there is of seeing, in the Mona Lisa, what is
entation of a stone cover being rolled off the top of a cistern, with a represented there.
low, 'grumbling' motive in the bass instruments of the orchestra. With regard to Scruton's drum that when music represents
Such examples could be multiplied indefinitely; there is no dearth music it just is what it represents, it suffices to observe that his own
of them. example belies that claim if the example is described in enough
But composers also do something that seems to be best described detail. The hymn that the congregation sings in The Mastersingers
as representing music with music. Here is an example. The open- is a sixteenth-century hymn; for the sixteenth century is when the
ing scene of Wagner's opera The Mastersingers of Nuremberg, the events are represented as taking place. But the music that we hear
plot of which revolves around the life of the poet-singer Hans is not really a sixteenth-century hymn. It is a hymn accompanied
Sachs (1494-1575), takes place during a church service. In the scene by a huge orchestra, interrupted by orchestral interludes, and in
the congregation sings a Lutheran hymn. Wagner, we might want distinctively nineteenth-century harmonies. There is no way one
to say, 'represents' the hymn, which is music, with his , Wagner's, could mistake this music for a sixteenth-century hymn. And the
music. most reasonable way I can trunk to express what is going on here
These examples of aided pictorial representation seem straight- is to say that a sixteenth-century hymn is being represented in
forward enough to me. But others have not found that to be the a nineteenth-century musical style, as we would say that a vase
case. In fact, two basic objections have been raised against such of flowers is being represented in a nineteenth-century painterly
examples, based on what are perceived by most of us to be neces- style. A sixteenth-century hymn is the object of the representation,
sary conditions for pictorial representation: a distinction between nineteenth-century Wagnerian harmonies are the medium.
representation and the thjngrepresented, and that we be able to 'see Moving on to where non-musical sound is the object of pictorial
in' or (in this case) 'hear in' the pictorial representation what is representation in music, there seems even less reason to trunk that
represented there. object and medium coalsesce . Musical representations of music are
The British philosopher Roger Scruton has argued that the first music. But musical representations of thunderstorms, birdsongs,
condition is not fulfilled in what I have been calling pictorial repres- and the sound of spinning wheels certainly are not those sound
entati6ns in music. He argues that, in the case of music's repres- events. The medium is music, and there is little temptation to mis-
enting non-musical sounds, the music does not so much 'represent' take the medium for the object of representation, even though
as 'reproduce' the sounds; it is sound imitation. And, in the case both are sounds. There is a big difference between an imitation of a
of music's representing music, there is no representation either, birdsong-there are people and gadgets that do that sort of thing-
because the music just is what it is (mistakenly) described as repres- and a musical representation of one, played with expression and
enting. Wagner's so-called representation of the Lutheran hymn musicianship on an oboe or clarinet.
just is a Lutheran hymn. In sum, then, there seems no reason to trunk that, in pictorial rep-
As for 'hearing in,' the American philosopher Jenefer Robinson resentations in music, medium cannot clearly be distinguished from
has simply claimed that we don't. We just don't experience in music the object represented. It appears that Scruton's objection does not
the kind of thing that w e experience in painting, for example. There hold up. What about Robinson's?

186 - Narration and Representation Narration and Representation - 187

 I think the best way to counter the notion that there is no genuine the whirring of the spinning wheel in Schubert's song, or the bab-
'hearing in' in musical representation, significantly like 'seeing in' bling brook in the Pastoral, strongly suggests that 'hearing in' occurs
in the visual arts, is to be very careful in distinguishing, to begin vividly enough and frequently enough- assuming, of course, that
with, between 'seeing in' and illusions. When we say that we 'see in' there is a text present to facilitate it. For that is the real difference
the Mona Lisa a woman, we do not mean to say that we really think between 'seeing in' and 'hearing in.' '~in' · usually unaided.
we see a woman in the canvas, or even that we are momentarily 'Hearin ·n· robabl)' never is.
tricked, as we are in the kind of painting called trompe l'reil painting, So I think it is fair to conclude that neither the objection of
painting that, literally, 'deceives the eye.' We are aware that we are in Scruton's, nor that of Robinson's, is successful in convincing us that
the presence of a representation of a woman, and aware that there is aided pictorial representation in music does not occur where we
a medium of representation, oil paint. think it does. Let us, then, consider that case closed. We must now
'Hearing in' should be thought of no differently. In particular, spend a moment considering structural representation.
we should not set a 'standard,' so to speak, of'hearingin' any higher Rej,2r enting things other than sounds and sound events in music
than that for 'seeing in.' Of course we are not fooled by the accom- is a very old traditionm Western music. It was a going concern in the
paniment of Schumbert's song into thinking we are really hearing Renaissance. But it perhaps reached its peak in the music of the
a spinning wheel, in the sense either of an illusion, or of trompe Baroque period, roughly between 1600 and 1750, and had its most
l'reil. But nor are we fooled into thinking we are in the presence of a ardent devotee in Johann Sebastian Bach. The point of Bach's 'tone
real woman , in the sense either of an illusion, or of trompe l'a:il, when painting,' as it is sometimes called, was to 'reflect' or 'illustrate' in
we look at the Mona Lisa. Nevertheless we 'see in' the Mona Lisa a his music concepts or images in the religious texts that he set. (He
woman. Why should it not be the case that we 'hear in' Schubert's held, for the major part of his creative life, the post of Cantor in
song the sound of the spinning wheel? St Thomas Church, Leipzig, which meant that he was employed to
Perhaps it might be replied that the 'seeing in' of the woman in compose music for the service of that church, as well as to rehearse
the painting is more 'vivid' than the 'hearing in' of the spinning the choir and orchestra, and to serve as the church organist. )
wheel's whirring in the song. Well, however you measure 'vividness,' Of course the texts that Bach set, both from Scripture, and by
I guess the vividness of' seeing in' varies from work to work; and I religious poets of his day, were filled with Christian concepts and
guess the vividness of 'hearing in' must vary from work to work as symbolism, as well as allusions to events in Scripture. These fre-
well. I also guess that, where vividness declines 'enough,' however quently elicited tonal 'images' from Bach. Thus, for example, in a
'enough' is measured, people won't be able to 'see in' and pictorial text that mentions the Ten Commandments, the music is based on
representation will fail. But, even if it should be the case (and I have ten repetitions of what one might well describe as a very ' command-
no reason to thinkit is) that the most vivid cases of'hearingin' never ing' theme. Bach represents the faithful Christian following the
exceed in vividness the least vivid cases of'seeing in,' there is no rea- precepts of Christ with two themes that 'follow' one another: each
son whatever to think that 'hearing in' consistently falls below the thing that one melody does the other repeats right after. (This is
level of vividness necessary for successful pictorial representation in called a musical 'canon.' 'Canon' means 'rule' ; and the 'rule' here is:
music (always to be understood as the aided kind). Indeed the readi- the second melody does just what the first one does, or something
ness with which people recognize such pictorial representations as like that.)

188 - Narration and Representation Narration and Representation - 189

 Or, again, when Bach sets a text that m entions Christ descending Taking stock, now, we can see that music has (at least) three ways
from heaven, the theme descends, and when it mentions his ascend- of being perceived as appropriate to a text it sets or accompanies.
ing to heaven, the theme ascends. And music to the text 'the rich he t' r"' l>>
has sent away empty' Bach ends with a single, 'empty' chord on the _ the same emotions the text expresses. It can be repres~tati9.!?-- ,-, \ ,.:,..\'..
keyboard, all of the accompanying instruments having dropped out a&3.~ in a ictori;:i ] '!!!Y if it paints a sound picture of a
1
the measure before, in such an obvious, conspicuous way that it is sound event mentioned or described or implied in the text. And it
clear Bach has 'emptied' the piece of its accompaniment. Such ;. can be re reseu ro riate~~tructural way if it ana- > "-1'";·,. "-
examples abound, in Bach particularly, but in the music of other logizes in its structure some event or image or concept that the
__J
composers of the period as well, and it would be pointless to con- text contains.
tinue enumerating them. Opera has harvested all three of these ways in which music can
But with some of these examples before us it can be seen why I be appropriate to its text, but the expressiveness of music most
call this kind of musical representation 'structural' representation. especially, as I have said before. However, in the nineteenth cen-
For the common characteristic is that, in each, s.Q._me.structural ele- tury two other musical forms were exploited, and, if not invented
ment in the music corresponds with something in the text tbat the (which they were not), at least developed more fully, explored more
~cture, so to say, analogizes. The tenfold repeating structure cor- thoroughly, than heretofore. They are the programmatic symphonr__
responds to the Ten Commandments; the following structure of the and tl.!!:_Jone_poem. They are worth-perhaps even demand-a
two themes- the canon- corresponds to the Christian meta_Ehor:- look from the philosopher.
ically following Jesus; the empty concluding chord corresponds to There is some marked ideological tension between the musical
therich sent away empty; the descending and ascending structure of impulse and the literary impulse in nineteenth-century musical
the melodies corresponds to the descending and risen Christ. thought. On the one hand, it was in the nineteenth century that the
Of course there can be no question with structural representation concept of absolute music became solidified. The nineteenth cen-
of 'hearing in.' There is nothing to 'hear in' the music, because the tury has been called the Romantic century and musjc the Romantic
music, in these instances, does not represent sound, or sound events, ~ And a famous nineteenth-century art historian and critic,
but abstract concepts and things seen but not heard. One hears the Walter Pater, remarked that all of the arts ' aspire' to music- absolute
musical structure, understands the text, and perceives, cognizes, the music obviously meant. Yet, on the other hand, the nineteenth cen-
structural analogy. tury saw the rise for the first time of the 'literary' composer-
But there is a very important thing that pictorial and structural the composer as person of 'arts and letters.' Indeed, three of the
representation in music have in common, at least on my view. They greatest composers of the century, Robert Schumann (1810-56),
{ are both aided representations. They cannot be heard or perceived Hector Berlioz (1803-69), and Richard Wagner, each left behind a
without the aid of a sung or read or implicitly understood text. They literary legacy as well as a musical one: music criticism in the case
require the resources of language. And that is why, in previous of Schumann and Berlioz, philosophical speculation on music in
chapters, I have objected so vigorously to literary and philosophical the case of Wagner, not to mention that Wagner wrote his own
interpretations of absolute music. (This is a point I shall return to, opera texts, and Berlioz wrote one of the most readable and fasci-
once again, at the close of the present chapter.) nating autobiographies of the century. Furthermore, and most

190 - Narration and Representation Narration and Representation - 191

importantly, the century that gave us the concept of absolute music Let us suppose the limiting case: a single movement with the title
tried as hard as it could, nevertheless, to give instrumental music a Tragic Overture, but no other textual baggage at all. It is by Johannes
literary content. Brahms (1833-97) and is in clearly recognizable sonata form. What
The major, most powerful impulse, in the nineteenth century, are we to make of it?
to make instrumental music a literary art is not, in my view, very Now, once the composer aives his work a title , even one as vague
difficult to trace to its philosophical source. It is, it seems cer- as Tragic Overture, it licenses us to search the work for representa-
tain, G._W. F. H_~gel (1770- 1831), whose philosophical presence was tional aspects. My own take on Brahms's overture is minimalist. I
felt throughout nineteenth-century philosophical thought in gen- merely infer from the title that Brahms wishes to make explicit that
eral, thought on the philosophy of the fine arts in particular, and his work is expressive of tragic emotions rather than other kinds of
who decreed, at the time the status of music as a fine art was being dark emotions it might suggest to the listener. But, if someone were
debated, that abSGlute music could not be a fine art without a con- to hear King Lear in the music, there is certainly no reason to rule
tent and could not have a content without a_t~xt ._l t is this ukase that, such a reading out of court without a trial. By giving the work that
either consciously or unconsciously, drove the century that invented title Brahms has invited us to look for representational content if we
the concept of absolute music to go on to subvert it with a music like, and the search for Learin it is not excluded, as it would be, in my
that was both instrumental and 'literary.' view, if the work had no title at all .
As well, if sung conversations bothered you, and you thought What would the defender of a Lear interpretation have to bring to
opera and music drama 'absurd' on that account, 'literary' instru- the table in her defense of it? Obviously she would want to point out
mental music solved that problem for you, as melodrama was sup- musical aspects of the work that represent, pictorially or structur-
posed to do, but, in addition, did what melodrama never could: gave ally, events and characters in the play and emotive properties in the
you real music to chew on. I do not say that this was ever fully stated work that might be expressive of the emotive tone of the play at
as an aesthetic agenda by the supporters of'literary' music. But I do various points.
say that it was at least an undertext. When we are confronted with something more elaborate than a
Two musical forms, both generally referred to as 'program single movement with a title as its only accompanying text, let us say
music,' and not always very easy to distinguish from one another, a program symphony with an accompanying story-text, then, of
developed in the nineteenth century as attempts to give literary con- course, we have more to go on: a far more definite correspondence
tent to instrumental music. These are the 'symphonic tone poem' between events and characters in the story and expressive or rep-
and the programmatic symphony. What, in general, they have in resentational features in the music. A real musical example I think
common is some 'extramusical' idea, or some set of such ideas that would help here , so let us consider one: Hector Berlioz's Symphonie
works in these genres are supposed to contain or, if you will, pres- fa ntastique, perhaps the most famous (and controversial) work of
ent, and a written text making this extramusical content explicit. program music in the repertoire.
TQ!J.e_pQ.em~3I__e__g_enerally in one movement, prog!:a1E symphoni~ Symphonie fantastique- the Fantastic Symphony- is in five con-
multi-mov~ent wo And the t~xt, the 'program,' can range in trasting movements, each with a title: Reveries-Passions; A Ball;
complexity from a mere title to a fully worked-out story. Scene in the Country; March to the Scaffold; Dream of a Witches'

192 ~ Narration and Representation Narration and Representation ~ 193

Sabbath. Each movement also has attached to it from one to two images. (I put 'moving' in scare quotes because neither the sound
parag raphs describing what happens therein. images nor the visual images literally move: that is an illusion.) The
Briefly, the story is as follows. A young musician falls in love, at written text of the symphony is to the music what the titles of the
first sight, with a woman who excites in his musical imagination a silent movies are to the pictures on the screen. The music does not
melody that Berlioz calls an idee fixe, and that occurs periodically tell the story. It is the text that tells. (An illustrated novel might be
throughout the symphony (Reveries-Passions). The musician is at a another analogue.)
ball, where the image of the beloved appears to him (A Ball). He Of course program music is music, after all. And being music, it
wanders in the country and hears shepherds playing their pipes; but must fuJfill the 'syntactical' and formal requirements of its period
his tranquility is disturbed by thoughts of his beloved's possible and style. The Symphonie fantastique is a symphony-although it has
infidelity (Scene in the Country). H e takes opium in an attempt five movements rather than the usual four (as does Beethoven's
to kill himself, but instead of dying he has a ghastly opium dream Pastoral). And most of its movements are in familiar symphonic
in which he is led to the guillotine and executed (March to the form. The first movement, for example, is in somewhat eccentric
Scaffold). The dream continu es with visions of witches dancing in but recognizable sonata form. One w ay to put this is to say that, even
a devilish orgy, which ends in the musician's own funeral, accom- without the written text, program music, at least of the 'better'
panied by the Gregorian funeral chant: Dies irae (Dream of a kind, can be musically appreciated in its own right, purely as music,
Witches' Sabbath). without the text- in fact, without knowledge of the text. This fact
As might be expected, all of the kinds of representation I have has suggested a philosophical objection to the whole concept of
enumerated, as well as the emotive properties of music , are utilized program music.
by Berlioz in 'telling' his story in music. There is pictorial repres- Roger Scruton, whom we have mentioned before, in a sim-
entation of music: a waltz at the ball, the piping of the shepherds, the ilar context, argues that, since program music or representational
funeral music. There is pictorial representation of non-musical music in general can be fully appreciated, musically, without know-
sounds such as the guillotine's fall. There is structural representa- ledge of what story it tells, or what it is supposed to represent,
tion of the witches' orgy. And, of course, the emotional tone of the then it can't truly be described as narrative or representational
music at all times reflects the emotional tone of the events in the at all. For in true representational arts it would be absurd to claim
narrative. that someone could fully appreciate it without knowing what it
But does the music actually tell the story? Not really, which is why, represented. (Recall my example of the guy who said he loved
of course, I put 'telling' in scare quotes in the preceding paragraph. Renaissance painting but was unable to perceive what was repres-
We know music can't tell a story for reasons I have already gone over ented in it! )
thoroughly in previous chapters. What, then, is the music doing? It The problem here rests on the word 'fully.' For when I said that
seems to me that the best way to answer this question is by analogy program music of the better sort can stand on its own as music
with the silent movies. alone, I was not allowing it could be fully enjoyed as music alone.
Berlioz's Symphonie fantas tique , and program music like it, is, I That is because there are always (or at least usually) musical features
want to suggest, the sound analogue of the silents in these respects. of it that 'don't make sense,' or at least don't make as much sense, if
The music is 'moving' sound images, the film is ' moving' visual you don't know what the program is.

194 - Narration and Representation Narration and Representation - 195

 For instance, Richard Strauss (1864-1949) describes his tone fantastique is a work of art, and its programmatic text is part of that
poem Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks as in 'rondo form.' And, like all work of art. So, if you are not aware of that part, you are not fully
rondos, it is tied together by a recurring, easily recognizable theme: appreciating that work of art. Something in your appreciation is
the theme that 'represents' Till. But many of the contrasting themes lacking.
are very 'odd' ; and there seems no real musical reason why they are But what could you mean by saying that Symphonie fantastique
as they are, or why they come when they do. So as a rondo it doesn't cannot be fully appreciated as absolute music unless the program
totally 'hang together' until you know what these other themes rep- is known? Because, when you know the program, you can't, by
resent in the story, and what the storyline is, all of which explains definition, be appreciating, any more, a piece of absolute music at
their 'oddness,' and why they come when they do. all. Music with a program isn't pure, absolute music.
Or, to return to our previous example, Symphonie fantastique, in There is, however, another way to construe' appreciate fully' that
spite of its clearly recognizable symphonic form, still is oddly 'dis- can make better sense, non-trivial sense of the claim that you can-
jointed' in many respects as compared, for example, to the tightly not appreciate the Symphonie fantastique fully as pure instrumental
organized symphonies of Beethoven, Haydn, or Berlioz's great con- music. For, if you compare it, without the program, as absolute
temporary, Felix Mendelssohn (1809-47). The idee .fixe theme keeps music, to pure instrumental music by other composers of Berlioz's
recurring, throughout the symphony, as an 'organizational' theme stature, like Beethoven or Mendelssohn, you will see that it has gaps
might, in a work of absolute music. But it enters in odd, awkward, and defects, as absolute music-just those gaps and defects that the
at times musically 'unprepared' ways, which often have no particu- program makes good. So Symphonie fantastique is not fully reward-
larly musical explanation. As well, the entrance of the Gregorian ing, as absolute music, in comparison to those works, by the acknow-
chant Dies irae, towards the close of the symphony, seems quite inex- ledged masters, meant to be heard as pure music. Another way of
plicable on musical grounds. Why this? Why here? These kinds of saying this is that it cannot be as fully rewarding as those other
musical peculiarities abound in Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique; and works: or, in other words, it cannot be fully appreciated that way.
they don't make sense-musical sense-until they make narrative However, Scruton is certainly right in his insight that there is a
sense. And they don't make narrative sense, obviously, until you can very big difference between, let us say, representational painting
fit the program to the music. lJ:ie program is the major organizin~ and representational or program music. Certainly it would be non-
r.rfilciple of the symphony, as musical as it nevertheless is on its own. sense to say that we could appreciate a Renaissance painting (say) at
Thus it is certainly true that Symphonie fantastique can be appre- all if we had no idea whatever what it represents. Whereas it does
ciated as absolute music, in ignorance of its program (and later in his make sense to say that we could appreciate (at least to a substantial
life Berlioz expressed the wish that it be appreciated just that way). degree) Symphonie fantastique without having the least idea what it
But it is certainly not true that it can be fully appreciated just that represents.
way. There are, however, two ways in which this claim can be under- Nevertheless, the above is a very misleading observation. For the
stood, and they should be carefully distinguished. fact is we can't perceive a Renaissance painting without perceiving
If we mean that the Symphonie fantastique cannot be fully appre- what it represents. We seem to be 'hard-wired' in that respect. But
ciated as a work ofart, that is to say, as the work of art that it is, with- that is exactly what we can do with representational music because,
out knowing the program, that of course is trivially true. Symphonie unlike representation in most painting, representation in music is, of

196 - Narration and Representation Narration and Representation - 197

 necessity, aided, not unaided representation. And, if you accept the came to a different view of the world, non-Euclidean geometries
concept of aided representation in music, then the disparity Scruton were waiting there for them to use. They were then given the role of
points out, between representational painting and representational representing the real world, our space.
or program music, has no purchase. It is simply irrelevant as an Musical structure is like that. It is there waiting to be used, by
objection. The defender of representation accepts the premise of the composers like Berlioz anrl Richard Strauss, to illustrate and repres-
objection. ent.rrf it didn't have the structures it did, it couldn't be so used. But
I have, in this chapter and the previous one, outlined some of the it does have them; and it has them when they are fashioned into
ways, in opera, music drama, and program music, that music can be works of absolute musi~d that is why it is so easy to put fictional
appropriate to a text. It can be emotively appropriate, the music stories to absolute music. All you need do is fit your fictions to that
being expressive of those emotions mentioned or implied in the text music. Whatever that is, howe~r, it is not interpretati':?_~Interpre­
or dramatic situation. It can represent, pictorially, what the text tation tells us what is there, not what we can put there with little
mentions or implies, if what it mentions or implies is a musical, or more effort than we exert in seeing things in clouds. To show that
man-made or natural sound event. And it can structurally represent absolute music 'means' requires more than merely showing that it,
almost anything mentioned or implied in a text just as long as what 'could have meant,' since its struct\.lru ar.e expressive and capable
it mentions or implies can be structurally reflected in the music.
With these possibilities before us I can now suggest a way oflook-
ing at absolute music that explains a lot about why fictional inter-
~

---- -- -
of ictorial and structural representation. What must be shown is
that absolute music exists as- a representational or linguistic system.
-

And that, so far as I know, has never been shown by any of those
pretations at least seem to work so well, and are so easy to come up who practice the fictional or representational interpretation of the
~ with. Absolute music always possesses t!"ie potential ~or bein~ used to absolute music repertoire.
underlie a text or dramatic situation. One could, for example, write There is one further, and important, point to make before we go
a program for a work of absolute ~usic just because it is an expres- on to other matters: a point that is valid both for opera, and for
sive structure that could fit numerous programs or dramatic plots. the kind of music with text we have been looking at in the present
Not only could one do it; it was done in the nineteenth century. But, chapter, although perhaps in varying degrees .f"rt is that when text
when one does that, one is, of course, creating a new work of art: a is added to music, particularly if it results in fictional narrative,
prdgram symphony using someone else's music; it is a collabora- the arguments against the musical work's potential for arous-
tion. It is something similar to what a choreographer does when she ing the garden-variety emotions goes completely by the board.J
creates a dance with a plot, performed with the accompaniment of Once the conceptual apparatus of language is added to music, the
a piece of absolute music. work becomes as capable of arousing 'real-life' emotions as any
Absolute music is, in a way, like pure mathematics. For example, other literary work of art.
non-Euclidean genometries were discovered (or invented, if you Of course, as we saw earlier, there is a problem of how any fic-
prefer) as pure mathematical structures. They didn't represent any- tional story can arouse the life emotions in its audience. For the
thing. Indeed it was generally believed that the real world, our space, emotions in 'real life' are aroused, in part, by our beliefs that things
was Euclidean. It was represented by Euclidean genometry-the are really happening to real people. And in fictional works that is
kind of geometry you learned in high school. But, when physicists not so.

198 - Narration and Representation Narration and Representation - 199

 But the problem of how, or whether, fictional works can arouse was perfectly clear about what a work is, and what a performance of
real emotions-how, or whether, we really feel sorry for Anna it is, are not so clear after all. In the next two chapters I will examine
Karenina, are really afraid that the Frankenstein monster will kill the some of these difficulties, and present what I think works and per-
little girl-is a problem not for the philosophy of music particularly; formances are . But I should emphasize that what I have said in the
rather, for the philosophy of art as a whole. My own opinion on this preceding chapters is perfectly consistent with various other views
matter is that we really do feel sorry for Anna, are afraid for the little about the work-performance thing. You can reject what I say in the
girl, and, similarly, really are sorry and afraid for operatic heroes and next two chapters, and accept the rest, though I hope , of course, that
heroines. It is not my place, however, to argue for that point of view you will accept it all.
here. What is relevant for me to do is to remind the reader that he or
she should be very careful to distinguish between the question of
whether absolute music can arouse the garden-variety emotions
from that of whether texted music can. My answer to the first ques-
tion has been an emphatic No, and I have presented detailed argu-
ments for that negative opinion. My answer to the second question
is at least a tentative Yes, and I give no arguments for that positive
opinion here as it is not in my province as philosopher of music to
do so.
At this point in our proceedings we have reached the end of a long
story that has gone from theories about music and the emotions, to
an outline of the doctrine known as formalism, the version of that
doctrine I have called enhanced formalism, which I have defended,
the critique of that doctrine and my answer to it, and the use to
which music has been put in the setting of dramas and texts. But
now we must turn to other things; and first to the difficult problem
of what we are really talking about when we talk about music, in par-
ticular, musical works. Here is what I mean.
I have, throughout the preceding chapters, referred quite freely to
'works' of music, without any explanation or excuse. Probably you
all knew what was meant. For it is just the ordinary way we talk
about music. There are 'works' of music; and, of course, there are
'performances' of those works. Music is a performing art .
Yet, when one tries to dig beneath the surface of such perfectly
ordinary talk, some quite extraordinary and puzzling difficulties
become apparent, and one begins to realize that what one thought

200 ~ Narration and Representation Narration and Representation ~ 2or

 of the great conductor's markings and comments written in it:
that would be a collector's item and fetch a handsome price. They
might even pilfer Beethoven's original manuscript, an absolutely
priceless artifact. But in neither case, clearly, would they have stolen
CHAPTER II Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. For we could still go on enjoying its
beauty. There would remain other scores, and lots of recordings .
This is very unlike the case of the stolen Mona Lisa. As long as the
The Work thieves have it hidden away, only they can enj oy its beauty.
At this point the reader will surely have come to the conclusion
that the reason one can steal the Mona Lisa and not Beethoven's Fifth
Symphony is that the Mona Lisa is a physical object and Beethoven's
Fifth Symphony is a ... Is a what? That's the problem.
Certainly we talk all the time about musical 'works,' even when
we don't use the word. You say that you heard a symphony by
Beethoven, or that your daughter sang a song in the school play, or
Like many philosophical problems, the problem of the musical that Sousa's marches are okay for parades but not much good for
work-what kind of a 'thing' it is-can initially be raised, very simply, listening to. What are you talking about? 'Things.' But the grow-
by looking at how we ordinarily speak. ing suspicion that these 'things' are not physical things, like paint-
Suppose you picked up your morning paper and saw the head- ings and statues, is troubling. Like paintings and statues, musical
line: 'Da Vinci's Mona Lisa stolen. Culprits sought by police.' You works are 'works of art.' Yet they are not objects you can pick up or
would, no doubt, be shocked by the audacity of such an act. But you steal or even locate anywhere. They aren't anywhere , it would seem.
would not have difficulty imagining what had taken place. Thieves They're not situated in space and time; not, apparently, situated
somehow got into the Louvre, evaded the guards, lifted the canvas in our world. They are beginning to look like very mysterious things
off the wall, and spirited it away to their hideout. or objects indeed: ghostly apparitions that common sense, which
But suppose you picked up your morning paper and read: we all are proud of having, recoils from with quite understandable
'Beethoven's Fifth Symphony stolen. Culprits sought by police.' aversion.
Surely your reaction would not be shock but profound puzzlement. Perhaps, though, things are not as desperate as they seem. There
You would not be able to imagine what had taken place. Where are two kinds of'physical object,' at least if we stretch that concept a
did the thieves find Beethoven's Fifth Symphony? What did they bit, closely associated with musical works. And it might be the case
do when they found it? How can you 'pick up' Beethoven's Fifth that they together offer us a way to avoid tl{threatening invasion of
Symphony? How can you take it to your hideout? What would be the non-physical into our musical space. I have reference here to
the 'it' you were taking there? musical scores and musical performances. Let's take a brieflook at
Of course thieves could make away with the late Leonard them now, for starters. We will take a longer look later on (in the
Bernstein's personal score of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, with all next chapter).

The Work - 203

/ It is an obvious but important truth that music is a performing art. a large orchestral work like Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, many per-
And ever since there has been musical notation in Western music formers are required; and they do not all read from a score. Rather,
there has been a distinction between the performance and the thing each reads from his or her 'part'-the oboists from theirs, the
performed. In the very early period of musical notation, in Medieval violinists from theirs, and so on. Those parts are extracted from the
times, a good deal of the music may have been 'made up' on the score for purposes of performance; and they themselves are indi-
spot, in performance: what we would call 'improvising.' There was vidual 'instructions' for the oboists and violinists and the rest. The
also a good deal that was preserved not by the notation but by score is the master instruction, so to speak, from which all the other
memory and tradition, with the notation more or less a 'reminder,' instructions are derived. It is like a recipe for a complicated dish from
a jogger of the memory, rather than itself the preserver of the 'work.' which the chef extracts a recipe for roasting the meat, a recipe for
At some point, however, in the history of notation, it began to make sauteing the truffles, a recipe for preparing the sauce, and then
sense to say that 'something' was being repeated, from one perform- assigns them to his associates.
ance to the next; and, however vaguely that something was deter- I will, from now on, speak of the score of Beethoven's Fifth
mined by the notation, that was the 'work,' whether or not there Symphony as, from the performers' point of view, a set of instruc-
was a word for it, and whether or not memory played a prominent tions for realizing a performance. But you will understand from
role in the proceedings. what I have just said that that is an abbreviated way of describing
Now the history of Western musical notation is a fascinating what really takes place in a performance, when it involves many per-
study, and casts a good deal of light on the questions of what a work formers following many subsidiary instructions in their parts that,
and a performance are. But this is, after all, an introduction to the when put together, make a performance of the whole work. Let's
subject; and we must therefore pick a place somewhere 'in the turn now to the performance itself for a moment.
middle of things,' where the concepts ofscore, performance, and work The word 'performance' is ambiguous. If I refer to a 'perform-
are securely in place. The example I began with was Beethoven's ance' I may be taken either to be referring to the act or to the product:
Fifth Symphony, I guess the most famous piece of classical music that is to say, the act of playing a piece, or the sounds that that act
there is. And I think it would be a good idea to stick with it. produces. In what f~ows, when I use the word 'performance,' I will
Beethoven completed the work in 1807, and there can be little doubt always mean the product, not the act.
that! the score / work scheme was, at that point in music history, Now when the performers correctly follow the score of
firmly entrenched. Opinions may differ about how far back before Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, they together produce a performance
that date one can still validly talk about the work/ performance dis- of it. When they do, we will say that they have 'complied' with the
tinction. I tend to say very far back. Others may disagree. However, score's instructions, as we would say that, in driving on the left side
here would not be a good place to argue the point. For the time of the road in Great Britain, I have complied with the traffic regula-
being, 1807, and Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, will suit our pur- tions of that country.
poses very well. Let's begin with scores. What, then is the performance? It is a very complex sound event,
A musical score is a complex symbol system. From the per- composed of many different musical sounds, occurring over a cer-
former's point of view it is a complex set of instructions for produc- tain extended period oftime. But there is nothing mysterious about
ing a performance of the musical work that it notates. In the case of this big sound event. Sounds are vibrations of the air, a physical

204 - The Work The Work - 205

medium; and, without bending the concept of 'physical object' too are members of the class of primates, the number two is a member
far out of shape, we might say that a performance is a complex phys- of the class of even numbers, and so on. The class of compliants with
ical object. Or, perhaps we want to say that it is a complex sound the score of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, then, is the class of all
event. In any case, there is nothing mysterious about its existence. It performances of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. And by 'all' is meant
r
can be located in time and space, much like any other physical all: all performances past, ~ esent, and to come. So what Goodman
object. Just as my car was in the garage from 5.00 p.m. on Monday is telling us is that Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, the work, just is the
until 10.00 a.m. on Tuesday, a performance of Beethoven's Fifth class that comprises all of its performances: the ones that have been,
Symphony took place in Carnegie Hall Monday from 8.oo p.m. until the ones that are now taking place, and the ones that will take place
8.3op.m. in the future . In short, any musical work is the class of its perform-
Returning now to the score for a moment, we can see that there ances; the class of compliants with its score._J
is nothing mysterious about it either. It is a physical object-paper The work that is Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, then, if Goodman
with ink marks on it- locatable in space and time. Of course there is right, turns out not to be a weird, non-physical object, although it
are a lot of scores ofBeethoven's Fifth Symphony, and of many other certainly turns out to be a pretty unwieldy one: a class of who knows
works. But that need not bother us, at least for our purposes. how many members, yet to be, and unknown to us. But, after all, the
So, now, when Leonard Bernstein and the members of the classes of human beings and of presidents of the United States are
New York Philharmonic Orchestra performed Beethoven's Fifth both classes with who knows how many members, yet to be and
Symphony, there does not seem to have been any mysterious, ghostly unknown to us; and we don't find these classes difficult to live with.
object involved. The score is a physical object; the performance is The question is: Will Goodman's idea of the musical work work.
a physical object: a complex sound event in compliance with the Will it do what we require of it? Well, what do we require of it?
score. So, if we could say what the work is by merely talking about It is generally agreed upon that the kind of philosophical ana-
score and performance, there would be no mystery. lysis Goodman is proposing must allow us to talk about the object
The great twentieth-century American philosopher Nelson of analysis in just the old ways we are accustomed to, given that
Goodman thought he could do just that. Goodman had a very the analysis is true. Thus, in the given case, we want to say that a
strong aversion to 'mysterious objects' in all areas of philosophy. musical work, unlike a painting, say, cannot be stolen or damaged or
And he thought he could avoid the conclusion that the musical work replaced with a fake . And Goodman's analysis does allow us to talk
is a kind of mysterious, ghostly apparition by defining the musical that way about musical works if they are, as he claimed, classes.
work as follows : the compliants of a score are performances and the Because certainly it makes no sense to assert that a compliant of a
compliance class is a work. What did Goodman mean by this? score has been stolen or damaged or faked. How could you do these
We already know what it means for a performance to be a com- things to the class compliant with the score of Beethoven's Fifth
pliant of a score. But what does Goodman mean by the compliance Symphony? How can you steal or damage or fake a performance, let
class? alone a class of performances that contains members yet to be? So
A 'class' of objects is simply a specified collection or group: far so good for Goodman.
specified or collected in accordance with some rule or 'fact.' Thus, But we also want to say, for example, of Beethoven's Fifth
you and I are members of the class of human beings, human beings Symphony- indeed I have already said it- that it was completed in

206 ~ The Work The Work ~ 207

1807. However, we can't say that if it-the work-is the score com- It appears, then, that the strategy of identifying the musical work
pliance class: the class of all performances of the symphony. For that with its performances is not going to pan out. We just can't say all of
class is not yet complete-there will be future performances. And it the things we want to say about the work by merely talking about its
certainly wasn't complete in 1807, since it has had many perform- performances, even the class of all of them. Where do we go from
ances since then. here?
Furthermore, we want to allow the possibility of there being Let's return to 'ordinary language' again. In the wonderfully
musical works that never have been, and never will be, performed imaginative television series for children, Sesame Street, a character
because, perhaps, their scores were lost before they had even one appears during one of the skits and tries to sell the number two to an
performance. Imagine the score of a symphony forever hidden in unsuspecting sucker. He opens his trench coat, revealing under-
some inaccessible, unknown place, doomed never to be performed. neath a large, garishly colored number two, for the inspection of his
There is no class of its performances, no compliance class. On prospective buyer, the way a street vendor with (probably stolen)
Goodman's analysis we would have to say that the symphony does watches displays his wares to the unwary.
not exist. But that seems absurd. Of course it exists; what never has The skit, of course, is supposed to give children some insight into
or will exist is a performance of it, not it. what the number two is, and what it isn't; and it is supposed to give
As well, it is generally agreed that there are things true of a work children the idea that there is a big difference between the num-
but not of its performances, and vice versa. I might say that a per- ber two and a number two. It is a number two that the sharpster is
formance of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony was unexpressive; I would offering for sale, falsely advertised as the number two. The num-
hardly say that the symphony itself is unexpressive. Likewise, I ber two is not the kind of 'thing' that can be sold, any more than
might say that every performance of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is the kind of'thing' that can be stolen.
in the first ten years of its existence was unexpressive. In that case Furthermore, the number two, like Beethoven's Fifth Symphony,
I would be saying that a whole class of its performances was un- is not the sort of thing that can be stolen either. Does the rest of the
expressive, and not the work. analogy hold? Is Beethoven's Fifth Symphony not the kind of thing
Imagine now a very expressive twentieth-century work, but a that can be sold?
work so difficult to perform that it is destined, through all time, Surely here the analogy breaks down, you would reply, if you
nev~r to receive a truly expressive performance. In that case the knew anything about the great composer's way of life. For didn't
compliance class of its score is unexpressive, and the compliance Beethoven make part of his living selling his works? As a matter of
class of its score, according to Goodman, is the work. So the work historical fact, he sold the Fifth Symphony to the music publishers
is unexpressive. Howe~er, we have already assumed that the work Breitkoph and Hartel, under whose imprint it appeared in 1809. So
is expressive: so we have a palpable contradiction. The problem is there it is: a symphony bought and paid for.
that we want to preserve the possibility that a work might be expres- But we should be careful about this. There is a big difference
sive, and that the class of all its performances might not b<3 This between selling a symphony and selling a painting. When Leonardo
possibility apparently cannot be preserved if the work is identical sold his Mona Lisa, it was wrapped, delivered, and no longer in the
with the class of its performances, the score's compliance class, as possession of the artist. When Beethoven sold his Fifth Symphony, a
Goodman suggests. manuscript was wrapped, delivered, and no longer in the possession

208 - The Work The Work - 209

 of the composer. It should be obvious, however, that the Fifth other mathematical objects that I suggest can be applied to musical
Symphony was not wrapped or delivered, and still was in the posses- works as well. So, first, what is mathematical realism or Platonism?
sion of the composer, in the obvious senses that he also had a score, I shall say, following the terminology of the great American
·could play it on the piano, and probably had it committed to memory philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914), that numbers are
as well. You cannot sell a symphony, any more than y~u c~seJl 'types,' and their instances are 'tokens.' Here is an example to illus-
the number ~What Beethoven sold to Breitkopf and Hartel we trate what types and tokens are. The 'two' that the man on Sesame
would describe today as the 'rights' to his symphony: the exclusive Street was trying to sell was a token of the type 'two' (alth ough
legal right to publish the score. Thus, when we understand what it he was claiming that it was the type). The number two, like all
does and does not mean to 'sell' a symphony, we see that the ana- other numbers, is a type; and all of the written, printed, engraved,
logy between Beethoven's Fifth and the number two holds perfectly, sculpted, and otherwise inscripted 'twos' are tokens . The tokens are
at least as far as we have taken it: neither can be stolen and neither easy to pin down: they are physical objects. It's the type that's hard
can be sold; and, of course, there are a great many other things we to fathom. What is it?
can't do to the number two and Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, all According to the realist, the type, two, is a real, existent thing.
apparently due to the fact that neither is a physical obj ect, locatable (That is why such a philosopher is called a 'realist.') But it is not a
in space and time. physical thing. It is not locatable in space and time: indeed, it is 'time-
Now here is the big question I have been leading up to: given less.' It did not come to be; it cannot cease to be. And, not being a
that there is this striking analogy between the number two and physical object but a spaceless, timeless entity, it is clear that it can-
Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, or, to generalize from the individual not causally interact with our world of space and time. It is causally
case, a striking analogy between numbers and musical works, could inert. It cannot do or be done to. A strange 'thing' indeed. Some
it be that Beethoven's Fifth and the number two, musical works and people, like Nelson Goodman, have found, and find, it, and its many
numbers, are the same kind ofthings? companions, so strange that they cannot lend credence to their
Well, what kind of thing is the number two. I wish I could tell existence. On the other hand, defenders of realism in mathematics
you with confidence. But that is one of the hardest questions that claim that, as strange as these objects are, the way we do mathem-
philosophers have ever asked, and one of the oldest. It goes back to atics, and the way we talk about what we do, simply imply that
Plato; and it remains a hotly debated point among mathematicians such objects must exist. We will, they insist, just have to acknow-
and philosophers of mathematics. ledge that there are such strange obj ects, and to learn to live with
I am not a philosopher of mathematics, so I cannot give you them, to try to understand them as best we can.
an educated opinion as to what I think numbers are. But I can give One very important aspect of the realist's position in mathem-
you one philosophical answer to the question that I incline to: it atics, and elsewhere, demands our particular attention. It has deep
is sometimes called 'realism' with regard to the numbers, and to implications for the application of realism to the work/ perform-
other mathematical objects; and it is sometimes called 'Platon- ance concept, and it is the work/ performance application that is, of
ism,' b ecause the answer originates with Plato (as indeed does course, the aim of this exercise.
the whole question). And the reason I am giving you this answer- In ordinary life we distinguish sharply between the activities of
realism or Platonism- is because it is this take on numbers and making and discovering. We say that Columbus discovered America,

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not that he made it, and that Edison made the first electric light, not apparently not spatio-temporally located, of which the perform-
that he discovered it. (When we want to pay 'making' a big com- ances are 'instances.' This is just the way we talk about the relation
pliment we call it ' creating.') America was already there. Columbus between type and token. The number two is an object, not spatio-
had the perseverance and imagination to find it. The electric light temporally located, of which all the physical 'twos,' written Arabic
was not already there . Edison had the perseverance and imagination and Roman numerals and so forth , are instances, obviously locat-
to bring it into being. able in space and time.
Now one of the things that gives realism in mathematics its Furthermore, the tokens of the type differ from one another
initial appeal, many would say, is that, if realism is true, mathem- within given limits, even while being recognizable as tokens of that
atics turns out to be a process of discovery, not making. For the type. This is certainly true of the token 'twos'; and certainly true, as
'objects' about which mathematicians discourse, numbers and so well, of musical performances. Indeed, some of the differences among
forth, according to the realist, exist-always have, always will. Like performances are much valued, as we shall see in the next chapter,
America, they are 'out there,' waiting to be discovered (although, where the nature of musical performance will be taken up. But, of
unlike it, they do not' come to be' or 'pass away. ') And, when you try course, the range and degree of difference among performances are
talking about mathematics, you see right away that 'discovery talk' under the strict control of the score. For, although there are ways
sounds right, 'creation talk' doesn't. For example, it sounds right in which performances can, and are supposed to, differ from one
to say that Pythagoras discovered the famous theorem that bears another, they must all be in compliance with the score, or fail to be
his name, not that he made or created it. As well, we say about un- performances of the work- fail to be tokens of that type. A 'perform-
proven conjectures in mathematics, that is, statements in mathe- ance' with 'too many' mistakes and wrong notes, or a performance
matics that seem as if they might be true, but whose proofs we don't in which the player willfully departs from the score in impermis-
yet know, that these proofs have not yet been 'found.' sible ways, is no performance ofthat work, whatever else it may be.
Furthermore, it does appear reasonable to think that what the Two marginal notes at this point. I will call the view that musical
skit in Sesame Street does, for children, ifit is successful, is to get them works are types of the kind the realist in mathematics says numbers
to discover for themselves the existence of the number two, by see- are 'extreme Platonism.' And I shall assume, as I already implicitly
ing the difference between it and the thing being offered up 'for sale.' have, that all performances of the work are instances of the work:
Wollld it be too much to claim that this skit, if kids 'get it,' suggests tokens of the type. But it would be advisable, as we shall see, to hold
kids are 'natural Platonists' with regard to numbers? out the possibility that there are instances of the work that are not
As we shall see in a little while, the fact that types are discovered, performances. In short, all Rerfgrmanees are tokens of the type; but
not created, causes some difficulty for those who wish to construe not all tokens of the type are performances.
musical works as types. But before we get to that, let us see why it is There are many problems raised by the view that musical works
tempting to make this move. are types, like the number two; and, given the limitations on space,
What is most enticing about the type I token distinction is and on your patience, that an introduction to a subject naturally
that it seems to map very well onto the work/ performance imposes, I intend to deal only with four of them here, none, cer-
one. Performances of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony are particular, tainly, with the thoroughness it deserves. These problems are, first,
spatio-temporal 'things,' Beethoven's Fifth Symphony one 'thing,' that types are discovered and, most would say, musical works are

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)

made; second, that musical works, if types, would appear to be, so contain are the rejected ' creations. ' The final ' creation' is the work. I
to speak, pure sonic structures, whereas most would say that how think it is a fair point. But all the defender of the musical work as type
works are performed, that is to say; by what instruments, is essential needs is the concession that describing what is going on in composi-
to their nature; third, that the discovery of types seems an 'imper- tion as 'discovery' works as well as describing it as creation. He can
sonal' thing, whereas the musical work, like all works of art, bears then go on to point out th ~t. since the type I token distinction maps
the personal stamp, is the personal 'expression' of the artist; and, nicely onto the work / performance distinction, we can adopt it as an
fourth , that types are timeless, and cannot be destroyed, whereas it analysis of the work without worrying that it is unacceptable because
seems easy enough to imagine destroying, completely obliterat- it implies works are discovered and not created.
ing, a musical work- a fate , alas, that many of Bach's works have Nor need the extreme Platonist with regard to musical works deny
suffered, much to the sorrow of music-lovers all over the world. that there is a very important act of creation involved in the composi-
The notion that composing music might be a process of dis- tional process. It is what the contemporary American philosopher
covery rather than of making, or, to pay it the compliment we usu- of mathematics and language Jerrold Katz calls 'first-tokenin '-
ally do, creating, is going to seem strange to many of my readers. which is to say; creating the first concrete object to make it possible
But it appears to me that trying to see composition as a process for us to appreciate the abstract type the composer has discovered.
of discovering sound structures is not a counterintuitive idea at One might want to say that the first token of the musical type,
all, and might be a new, refreshing, and insightful way to see what when we are talking about composers of the stature of a Beethoven
composers really are doing. One way to see this is to consider the or a Mozart or a Bach, is 'in the head,' in the mind or imagination of
compositional process Beethoven went through in bringing forth the composer, perhaps as a mental 'performance.' But of course the
his great masterpieces. first-tokening that makes the discovered work available to the rest of
Beethoven left behind a large number of so-called sketchbooks us is the writing-down of the score, or, to a limited few, the playing
when he died, which reveal the compositional struggle he went oftheworkbythe composer. However you want to put it, what Katz
through to achieve the final results with which the musical world is wants to say is that we can pack into the first-tokening everything we
so familiar. Many of the sketches in these books-all but indeci- would like to say about the creation part of musical composition.
pherable to the lay person-have been made available to us by Composing, then, turns out to be a dual process of discovery and
scholars; and when one perceives the gradual progress the great creation, on Katz's view. The work, which is a type, is discovered. But
composer makes towards getting the themes, and modulations, and the first-tokening, which reveals the work, the discovery to the world,
structures he is finally satisfied with, one is very tempted to say, at is creation. And what Katz is suggesting is that the first-tokening,
least I am, that what we are seeing here is a struggle to 'find' the right being creation, can bear the weight of those things, originality, for
theme, the right modulation, the right musical structure. Beethoven example, that the notion of composition as discovery might seem to
has left behind, in other words, the gradual steps he took in dis- preclude. Originality, for Katz, is first-tokening of the type.
covering what he was after. There is much much more that would have to be said about dis-
One might object that what Beethoven did in his sketches can covery as a way of describing what composers do to begin to con-
equally well be described as a struggle to create his themes, modula- vince the skeptical that it is a plausible option. But I must leave that
tions, and larger structures by trial and error. What the sketchbooks for a more suitable occasion. I only hope I have said enough to make

214 ~ The Work The Work ~ 215

it seem to the reader at least a possible option. And I pass on now to various other aspects as well. Among these I count 'tone color.'
the second problem for extreme Platonism: the problem of per- Thus, where a particular instrument is specified by the composer to
formance means. play a particular passage, the particular tone color of that particular
It is tempting for the extreme Platonist to fall into the position instrument is stipulated as part of the sound structure that is the
(as I have in the past) that, just so long as the sonic structure of the work. Thus it is that sound ~tructure, tone color and all, belong to
work is sounded, that counts as a performance of the work. The work the type the composer discovers and first tokens.
type is a sonic-structure type, the performance a sonic-structure That being said, it must be said as well that specified instrumenta-
instance of the type. But suppose four woodwind players were to tion, in the modern era, although frequently essential to the pre-
perform a piece specifically written for four string instruments; and servation of work identity, is by no means always so. And that is why
suppose, further, that they played all of the notes correctly. In other rescoring works for different instruments does not always induce
words, they presented the sound structure completely intact, as us to say we now no longer have 'the work,' whereas changing the
envisioned by the composer and notated in her score. Would that notes, or at least, enough of them, does drive us to that conclusion.
be a performance- and instance-of the work? It would seem that What this strongly suggests is that sound structure, unspecified
the extreme Platonist would have to say 'yes,' whereas the ordinary, as to instrumentation, which is to say, timbre or tone color, lies far
theoretically uncommitted person might perhaps be inclined to closer than anything else to our deepest intuitions about what
say 'no' (although I am not sure he would). But, if 'no' is the right makes the musical work the type that it is. That fact notwith-
answer, then, clearly, extreme Platonism must be a false theory. standing, however, there is a large body of Western music for which
Actually the answer to the question cannot be a simple 'no' or a timbre or tone color is an integral part: part, one wants to say, at least
simple 'yes' because composers' attitudes towards performance I want to say, of its sonic structure. But, as I have pointed out, because
means have not been the same throughout the history of Western timbre or tone color can be construed as part of the discovered type,
music. In certain periods the attitude was fairly lax: in other words, this causes no problem for extreme Platonism.
what mattered most was the sound structure; means of perform- What does seem to pose a problem for extreme Platonism is what
ance, at least within certain wide limits, was left more or less up to might be described as the artificial production of timbre or tone
the performers themselves.Music, in this laissezfaire period, clearly color. This obviously never would have been thought of before
poses .no problem for extreme Platonism in the present regard'J the advent oflate-twentieth-century technology. For the entire his-
In the modern era, however, from perhaps the middle of the tory of Western music, until very recently, the only way to make the
seventeenth century to the present, the attitude of the composer has sound an oboe makes was to blow on an oboe, the only way to make
become more and more intransigent towards his or her stipulations the sound of a violin was to play one, and so on . But one can now syn-
with regard to instrumentation, and, as well, the music has become thesize these sounds on an electronic gadget, and, in fact, 'construct'
less and less possible to realize with instruments other than those a 'sounding' of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, with the structure,
the composer has stipulated. Nevertheless, I think that extreme timbre or tone color included, completely intact. Is it a perform-
Platonism can still be maintained with regard to such music. ance? Is it an instance of the work?
To see this let us recall that 'formalism,' as I have construed it, Of course the synthesized sounding of the Fifth Symphony is not
encompasses not merely musical form , narrowly conceived, but a performance act, so not a performance in that sense of the word.

216 ~ The Work The Work ~ 217

rAnd I stipulated from the start of this chapter that I would mean then a true instance of the work must have a visible performance,
the product when I used the word 'performance,' in other words, and the type must reflect that necessity. It would be an aspect of
the sounds produced by the act. put the synthesized sounding of what the composer discovers and first tokens.
Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is not a product of the performance act I do not think intuitions or philosophy can take us further than
at all, so not, therefore, a 'performance' of the work in either the act this, at least within the confines of this introduction. I will simply
or product sense. conclude that, with regard to instrumentation, extreme Platonism
At this point it seems advisable to say that, although all perform- is at least still in the running.
ances of a work are instances of it, there can be instances that are not The third problem for the extreme Platonist, it will be recalled, is
performances, synthesized sound occurrences being a case in point. that musical works, like all works of art, one would presume, bear
To some this may seem an entirely reasonable solution. But others the unmistakable personal mark of the artist: they are the artist's
might have intuitions pointing in a different direction. They might 'personal expression.' Whereas a discovery is an 'impersonal' sort of
want to say that, unless the sounding is produced in something thing. As Jerrold Levinson forcefully poses the objection, America is
like the customary way, by means of musicians and instruments, out there waiting for Col um bus to discover it, whereas a composer's
a sounding not only cannot be a performance but cannot be an symphony is irrevocably and exclusively his.
instance either. What can we say to them? The discovery of America, as opposed to the composition of a
We might just dig in our heels, pit our intuitions against theirs, symphony, certainly makes a stark contrast. But it does seem like
and add that there is nothing in musical scores, as we know them, stacking the cards against extreme Platonism. Perhaps a contrast
that rules out the possibility of an instance being produced by some- more friendly to the Platonist would be that between Beethoven's
thing other than a performance act, and, hence, at the same time, composing his Fifth Symphony and Newton's discoveries of the
being an instance but not a performance. Another, more daring, sug- laws of motion as expressed in his great Principia mathematica (1 68?).
gestion is that we construe a musical performance, product, that is, For the Principia certainly bears the personal stamp of Newton, as
as not merely a sound occurrence but a visual occurrence as well. An the Fifth Symphony does ofBeethoven. (Mathematicians and math-
opera, in a concert performance, without costumes, stage setting, ematical physicists, I am told by the experts, have clearly discernible
and the rest, is not an instance of the work, which is constituted personal styles, some better than others. )
of visual as well as sonic components. A work written as part of a The contrast between Beethoven's Fifth and Newton's Principia
liturgical service, a mass, let us say. has, like an opera, a visual com- suggests at least a partial answer to Levinson's problem. The answer
ponent, a stage setting, if you will, namely the service of which it is is, as Jerrold Katz has it, that the personal stamp is borne by the first-
a part. So a concert performance of it, like the concert performance tokening. The artist's creative achievement, then, on Katz's view,
of an opera, would not be an instance of the work. But wasn't her special, personal relation to the work, lies in her being able to
Beethoven's Fifth Symphony written to be performed in public con- make it possible for us to hear what she has heard, which is to say, our
certs, Mozart's wind divertimenti and serenades at social functions , being able to hear what she has discovered.
with all of their visual components in place? (I am not, of course, This way of looking at composition is well illustrated by an
suggesting that the participants must wear period costumes!) If a old, very Romantic film about the life of Beethoven, called Eroica.
visual performance is an essential component of a musical work, (Beethoven titled his great Third Symphony Eroica- the heroic

218 - The Work The Work - 219

symphony; and he was himself seen as a hero, as heroic, by the nine- of musical works as discoveries, and the implications of that notion,
teenth century. ) There is a memorable scene in the film in which unacceptable. How can we have the one without the other?
Beethoven first fully realizes that he is becoming deaf- that he will Well, if you want to preserve the type / token distinction as
be a deaf composer. He is in despair. But his friend Amenda, a priest, an analysis of the work / performance distinction and block the
tries to console him with the thought that God has closed up his ears implication that works are J.iscovered rather than created, why not
so that he can hear what only can be heard when worldly clamor simply hold that musical works are created types? That is precisely
has been subdued; so that he can hear in his mind's ear, as it were, what Levinson suggests. Musical works, in his terminology, are
totally new, other-worldly sounds that he can then enable us to hear 'initiated types.' They are not discovered but made. They begin to
as he has. The sounds are there; only Beethoven, the deaf composer, exist only when initiated by intentional human acts. The Lincoln
can hear them; we cannot. It is his special gift, his special genius penny is such a type, as is the Ford Thunderbird and Beethoven's
to discover them to us. They are his special sounds; only he can dis- Fifth Symphony, according to Levinson. The penny in my pocket is
cover them because only he can 'hear' them. a token, the Lincoln penny is the type . Your red Thunderbird is
We tend to think of artistic creation as a peculiarly Romantic a token , the Ford Thunderbird is the type. The performance of
notion. It would be a useful corrective to this notion to be reminded, Beethoven's Fifth Symphony we heard last night is a token, the Fifth
as the film Eroica reminds us, how imbued with 'discovery language' Symphony is the type. All of these types, however, were created
Romantic discourse about the arts really is. at some point in human history, not already in existence and dis-
I do not want to leave the impression, in concluding this point, covered; and there could be no tokens of them, no pennies, no
that I think Katz's suggestion has fully answered Levinson's worry. Thunderbirds, no performances of the Fifth Symphony, until the
There is far more that must and can be said. This is just a beginning. creation, the initiation, of the respective types.
But beginnings after all are all that an introduction can be expected Musical works, then, being initiated types, come into being. Can
to give. The reader will have to find her own endings if she is motiv- they pass away? Once initiated, can they be terminated? For the
ated to go further with the question. extreme Platonist, musical works, like the number two, are neither
This leaves remaining the fourth difficulty for extreme Platonism: created nor destroyed. They have no beginning in time, and can
that works, being types, as they cannot be created, cannot be have no end. What can happen to them is that they can be perman-
desuroyed, whereas it does seem that works of music can perish, and ently removed from human consciousness and memory: all of the
have done. I will set this difficulty aside for the moment, and intro- means of performing or otherwise making instances of them avail-
duce at this point an alternative to extreme Platonism that Jerrold able to us can be destroyed; all of the scores, recordings, memories
Levinson calls' qualified Platonism,' and that is the view that he him- in the minds of musicians can crumble to dust. In that sense,
self holds. At the end of the chapter I will return to it. Beethoven's Fifth Symphony can be destroyed. It can become noth-
I shall state Levinson's view very briefly and simply. Levinson, like ing to us. But it cannot cease to be. Could it cease to be if it were an
the rest of us, would have his cake and eat it too. He is attracted, as initiated type?
am I, by how well the type I token distinction maps onto the Levinson's answer to this question is interesting. He thinks the
work/ performance one. But, unlike defenders of what I have been most defensible view, as he puts it, is that a musical work can,
calling extreme Platonism, like Katz and like me, he finds the notion indeed, be destroyed, ifit should come to pass, and there is no reason

220 - The Work The Work - 221

I

to think it could not, that no one knows of the work or ever will Platonism and work out some way of understanding an initiated
again. But he nevertheless feels strongly drawn to the more extreme type that can accommodate its existence as a type with the fact that
Platonic intuition that a type cannot be destroyed; that even an initi- composers, flesh-and-blood creatures, can create spaceless timeless
ated type, a type that has come to be, cannot, once created, cease to entities with which we cannot causally interact. As they say in the
be, but must remain forever in the strange world occupied by the market, 'You pays your mo~·.ey and you makes your choice.'
number two and the rest of the extreme Platonist's menagerie. Like My choice is extreme Platonism. It is, of the three, the most
Dr Frankenstein, the composer creates a monster that thenceforth startlingly counterintuitive. But it is also, it appears to me, the most
cannot be subdued. philosophically interesting. And the notion of composition as dis-
But the entertaining of extreme Platonism, even at one end, so to covery, when you get over the shock, I think casts much needed
speak, the denial of mortality, suggests at least a serious worry about light on the so-called creative process, over which so much mystery
the whole notion of an initiated type. Can we create anything that seems to hover. As well, it thereby draws an analogy between at least
cannot be destroyed? Furthermore, whether or not an initiated type some of the arts, and the scientific enterprise, thus helping to close a
can cease to be, it is, after all, an abstract object that occupies a space- conceptual gap many have found disturbing.
less, timeless realm with which we cannot causally interact; that is to But, whichever of these three choices you, the reader, will make,
say, a world of objects that neither we nor anything else in the phys- it will be consistent with everything that has been said about the
ical world of time and space can do anything to, as well as a world of philosophy of music prior to this chapter. In addition, it will be con-
objects that cannot do anything to us or our world. This may well sistent with everything I say about the closely related concept of
suggest to you, as it seems to to Katz, that such an object cannot be performance in the chapter that now directly follows.
brought into existence through the agency of human action. For
what else could that creation by human agency be but causal inter-
vention in that realm of spaceless timeless objects with which we
have already agreed we cannot causally interact? The notion of an
initiated type, in other words, is simply incoherent; ifit is initiated, it
cannot be a type; if it is a type, it cannot be initiated.
Here I must let the matter stand. All I can do for present purposes
is to present the reader with three options, 'on offer,' as philosophers
are fond of saying. Perhaps the reader will feel, after seeing the
difficulties that extreme and qualified Platonism raise, that the
notion of the musical work as the compliance class may not be so
hopeless after all, and worth some reconsideration. If, on the other
hand, the reader thinks, as I do, that that view is a non-starter, he or
she may want to accept extreme Platonism, with all of its seemingly
counterintuitive implications, and try to understand them and to
live with them. Or, finally, the reader may want to go with qualified

222 ~ The Work The Work ~ 223

 them all. Whatever else we say about performance beyond this min-
imal definition will make no further, deeper assumptions that have
anything to do with the nature of the musical work.
I do not say that the analysis of musical performance that I am
CHAPTER 12 about to give is consistent n: ith every possible analysis of what the
musical work is. I cannot say that, because I cannot be acquainted

And the Peiformance with every possible way the musical work might be construed.
All I can affirm with any certainty is that what I am going to say
about musical performance here is consistent with what I have
thereof already said about the musical work. That, I trust, will suffice for
present purposes.
The consideration of what a musical performance is will break
down, in this chapter, into two subsidiary questions. Since we have
already seen that, to begin with, a musical performance is com-
pliant with a score, the first question obviously must be : What is it
to be compliant with a score? How, in what way, does a musical
performance 'comply'?
I said at the end of the previous chapter that what I have to say about But, once we know what it might mean for a complex 'sound
musical performance in this one will be consistent with any of the object' to comply with a score, and, hence, fulfill the minimal
three theories put forth there about what the musical work is. The requirement for being a performance of the work, we will then
reason for this is that the question of what a musical performance is want to know what else it is. After all, a house is a compliant with the
assumes as its first principle only that a musical performance must architect's blueprint, a game of chess is compliant with the rules of
be compliant with a score. That is the basic necessary condition for chess. But a house and a game of chess, although both compliant
being a performance of a musical work and not something else. But in something like the sense in which a performance is compliant,
all tHree analyses of what a musical work is, previously examined, are very different things from one another. What kind of a com-
make that assumption as well. That is to say, whether you think the pliant 'thing' is a musical performance? Is it like a house to its
work of music is the score compliance class, or a created type, or blueprint, like a game of chess to the rules, or some other kind of
an uncreated, discovered type, you will, as well, think that a per- thing entirely? That is our second question.
formance of the work must be compliant with the score. On this, the But, first things first. So let us begin by asking what it might mean
anti-Platonist, the extreme Platonist, and the qualified Platonist to comply with a musical score.
agree. Thus, the examination of what a musical performance is The most obvious thing to say is that a compliant with a score or
starts out with a minimal definition of it, namely, a compliant with notation is a sound object produced in accordance with the instruc-
the score, common to all three analyses, and hence consistent with tions for performing that are embodied in the score or notation.

And the Peiformance thereof ~ 225

That is what I will say, and all that I will say, as a 'definition,' if you
will, of what score compliance is. What further I will do to amplify
this rather empty abstraction is to put forward four concrete exam-
ples of musical notation, and discuss some of the ways in which they
differ. In doing that I hope to give the reader a more definite idea of ,, , - ,
fa f~ lq7ra wx.u; HI JLI Tl r. .IL
what complying with a score or notation really involves from the I ' ,,... • ' I*" • I :

practical point of view. This will not result in a logically airtight U..Wf f~ m fcifrangn;u; quu Pree.um qw.i UClllJ
definition of score compliance . For that you will have to turn to 0 J! "r A. T Jl..IX
( , /9' • ~ • • 4

minds of a different stamp from mine. What it will accomplish, I wd JldJ1l ~an; rgra ti nun .uupiffa; 1i non me;
hope, is to give a general understanding of what score compliance J)JCVS A.1>.fSS.fT
involves, no matter what the ultimate fine points of the logic turn I • f"

out to be. With that general understanding to hand I can then go on c:r rrwm1 dm.cfi~ umnefnaff.tf.u.L p~ !'..tu.ms
, - -
to say something about what kind of a 'thing' a performance is and
what kind of agent produces it.
CV )T~:~;::~~s:~~v S.PI,S IT &[A..·

Let us say that, from the performer's point of view, complying

with a score means 'simply playing the notes as written.' For if, it " - - - -/ '
J b.inh~u;m~xpi .i:n;a. fiiu/r:r~C:,hrr_
1 I r •
D 1 6 HIS I' lLf CON 11 S
would seem, you do anything more or anything less, if you add ,.,.1r. '''r~ .. . 1 · ' , ,_
notes or if you omit notes, you are not following instructions. And if mf obmrmi;Pl qUD maram1m fahbufr1.sfa.v~
, I ~I I , ' I ,. I f ..... 1 I . I I , I l
you are not following instructions then you are not, by definition, in r.uutoJ1.z...l. rn mdJ~ populJfpdtrai;rudllgcuum
compliance with the score. ''''·'' , , }"' ... ,.,.,,
w d.alm wn1f 1uufum y JJ o l l..r &..IJ
But to the injunction 'simply play the notes as written,' any sens- .. ,, ... / f f,,,

u.of mftru.mf f.tncwf A. e o s ro L v s

ible performer will retort that, if you only did that, you would pro- .. J 1 I .. • 1 ' f · • - 1
1 r- .. ..
duce a very unmusical, which is to say a very bad, performance. The iu.ffn; fumga-c tdoL.t. .uq;..r:po f.u:.crC I f .M .r [A.
.. ,1 I· . .. ,,,,, ·I 1/1 •1 /
performer, the good, the musical performer, must add something ~ -r dmtoncf qu.of~fi:cn: Longiuf.W1rr
r-" • .. I I I .. ,. ...
beyond the merely as written, must she not? That certainly sounds ub1 cffcm:; JN VI A.If K. &.f
right. However, before we get to such considerations, it would be a 1 I , J .... t i Ill/ ti I .I

und.a; lfpfof f.duz;J pnfbnf rx rtd.dida 1 c;1..os

good idea to see if we can first get a handle on what it means 'simply
to play the notes as written.' It may mean more than meets the eye.
So let us now look at the four examples of musical notation I said
that I would produce for discussion.
Figure r is an example from a very early period of musical nota-
tion in the West; Figure 2 produces an example from the first half of
the eighteenth century, the period of the 'figured bass' (which I shall
explain in a moment); Figure 3 is an example of what might fairly be Figure 1. Example of early Medieval chant notation

226 - And the Performance thereof And the Performance thereof - 227
called musical notation in its present form, although it is from the musicologist Leo Treider tells us was one in which a good deal
early nineteenth century; and Figure 4 is a modern performing edi- depended upon the memory of the performer, for which the nota-
tion of the example presented in Figure 2. tion provided reminders rather than instructions. In short, com-
Now at this point those of you who do not know how to read pliance with this notation is fully determined by it, given what the
music are beginning to get nervous. Don't! Whatever I say about performer was supposed to bring to it in the musical period and
these musical notations will be quite understandable to anyone, practice of which it was a part. So, if compliance with it seems to pro-
whether musically 'literate' or not. duce a wider range of pitch possibilities than compliance with a
The first example will look strange to anyone who has even the modern notation would countenance, that does not mean there was
most minimal acquaintance with modern musical notation. If you not a class of compliants with that notation. It merely means that
simply know what modern musical notation looks like, without that wide range of pitch possibilities was compliant with that nota-
knowing anything more, you will not even recognize this example tion, although a similar range of pitch possibilities would not be in
of early musical writing, from the Medieval period, as musical nota- compliance with a modern one.
tion at all; it will look merely like a text with what appear to be To nail this point down let us jump some hundreds of years to a
accents over the letters. But these marks are really instructions to notation that looks for all intents and purposes to be a modern one,
the singer to sing higher here, lower there: in other words, they are except for one slight anomaly (Figure 2). To the person only vaguely
the notation of a melody; a liturgical chant. familiar with what musical notation looks like, this example, the
Now one's first reaction to this musical notation is to think it beginning of a sonata for flute and harpsichord by Johann Sebastian
a primitive vehicle indeed for conveying musical thought. For ex-
ample, modern notation tells us what pitch a melody starts on, and
Adagio ma non tanto
exactly how much higher or lower the next pitch of the melody is
supposed to be. But these 'chicken scratches' merely say 'go higher
here,' 'go lower here.' How much higher, how much lower; and
higher or lower than what? Surely, it might be concluded, this nota-
tion does not tell us in any determinate way what compliance with
it would be. It needs improvement, one might insist, before the con-
ce~t of score compliance can validly be applied to it at all.
'This reaction, I think, would be a mistake. For it overlooks the
fact that this notation, like any notation from any period, exists
within a musical practice. No musical notation can be interpreted
outside the background knowledge required for its interpretation. 6 4 6 6 6 6
2 5 5
And the so-called primitive notation being examined here seems
uninterpretable to us, on first reflection, simply because it is being
thought about within our musical practice rather than within the Figure 2. Opening measures ofJohann Sebastian Bach's Sonata for
one of which it was a part: a practice that the great Medievalist and Flute and Harpsichord (BWV1034) in figured bass notation

228 - And the Performance thereof And the Performance thereof ~ 229
 Bach (1685-1750 ), will look just like what he or she would expect. Andante
Unlike the previous example, of early Medieval notation, it is un- Oboe
mistakably musical notation, not chicken scratches. But there is
something funny about it, which you will see if you look closely.
Above the second part, the bass accompaniment, there are little
Pi ano
numbers. What are these little numbers doing in a musical nota-
tion? More obvious though, I said that this was a sonata for flute and
harpsichord. But all Bach seems to have given the harpsichordist to
1
do is to play the bass part with his left hand. What was he supposed "
to do with his right hand? Stick it in his pocket? Did harpsichord ...
players only use their left hands in Bach's day? II ~ ~ ~ ~ !:~ fL ... - ....

t~ -
To see what I am driving at, here (in Figure 3) is what the begin-
I
ning of a sonata for oboe and piano looks like, by the nineteenth-
century composer Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848). Just as one would
~: ! -
i' I
expect, there is a part for the oboe, and notes to play for both the
pianist's right and left hands. Notice too that there are no little num-
bers over the bass notes in Donizetti's piece.
5
"
...
I"-
- ... ,-#P - fL

So what is going on in Bach's sonata? The experienced musician -

.. .
/\

will know that the little numbers in Bach's score tell the harpsi-
chordist what chords to play with his right hand. This is called tJ I
·~· • -,J - - 7T - -
'figured bass. ' And, when the harpsichord player follows the instruc-
tions that the numbers in the figured bass give him, he will get some-
:
--
Figure 3. Opening measures of Gaetano Donizzeti's Sonata for Oboe
thing like the result you see in Figure 4, which now does look like a
and Piano
sonata for flute and harpsichord, not merely a sonata for flute and a
one-handed harpsichordist.
But, again , as in the case of the Medieval notation, the reaction of
the reader may be that Bach's notation does not fully determine just so long as he does not disobey the 'numbers' and the general
what the performer, in this case the harpsichord-player, is meant rules of musical 'grammar' that Bach's period mandates. One
to do, so the concept of score compliance cannot apply to this nota- accompanist's rendition will, therefore , sound very different from
tional system. Donizetti tells the pianist exactly what to play in both another's. The very notes they play will be different. That cannot
the right and left hands. Bach, however, merely stipulates what happen in performances of Donizetti's sonata. If two pianists
chords the harpsichordist is meant to play with his right hand. And play different notes with their right hands, one, or both, are not
the harpsichordist has great leeway in how he plays those basic in compliance with the score. 'Play only the notes I have written,'
chords. He can play all sorts of other notes, at his own discretion, Donizetti's notation commands us.

230 - And the Performance thereof And the Performance thereof - 231
 Again, however, as in the case of the Medieval notation, the belief Adagio ma non tanto
that Bach's score has not fully determined compliance with it arises
from the mistake of thinking about it in terms of a more recent
musical practice rather than in terms of the musical practice of
Bach's time, of which figured bass, in particular, was an integral part.
It may seem sensible to say that the difference between Bach's nota-
tion and Donizetti's is that Donizetti's has fully designated the con-
ditions of score compliance for the right hand of the keyboard part
7 6 7 6 6 6 6
whereas Bach's notation has not done that. Bach's notation is, so to 5

speak, 'vague ,' because it does not determine 'exactly' what notes
the right hand is to play, as Donizetti's notation does, but merely /\ ~
·' ~ ........ - ... -. .....
[tr]
-*
gives fuzzy boundaries within which a wide range of individual real- tJ - i::::_J
= -
izations is possible. But that is the wrong way to look at things. I I Jl ~ - I !J
Compliance with Bach's score is fully determined. What the right
"-'
hand ofthe harpsichordist plays, in performing the flute sonata, is in
KU
tJ w
. - - ,., I
full compliance with Bach's score if it just follows correctly the :
instructions embodied in the numbers of the figured bass. And these __,
6 4 6
2 Sb 6 6 6
instructions include whatever freedom the figured bass not only 5
allows but in a very real sense commands. This freedom is part of
score compliance in the case of Bach's notation as it is not, for
instance, in the case of Donizetti's. Appearances to the contrary
notwithstanding, then, Bach's notation determines score compli-
ance just as fully as does Donizetti's.
With this in mind, we can turn to Figure 4, which has something
more to tell us about what full compliance with Bach's score really
amounts to. The notes in the right hand of the keyboard are part of
4- 6 # [4-] 6 6 4- 6 6 6 7
what is called a modern 'realization' ofBach's figured bass. In Bach's 4 [2 1 4 #
3
time the right hand of the harpsichord was improvised, in other
Figure 4. Opening measures ofJohann Sebastian Bach's Sonata for
words, realized on the spot, in performance. It was part of the harp-
Flute and Harpsichord (BWV1034) in a modern performing edition
sichordist's training to enable him to read the numbers of the
figured bass 'at sight.' It was considered part of the musical per-
former's 'art.' But many accompanists today do not possess that
skill, so 'performing editions' of music with figured bass supply for
the contemporary player a written-out version of what he or she is

232 - And the Peiformance thereof And the Peiformance thereof - 233
to play with the right hand. The point I want to make with regard to high value we place on art and artists to bestow extravagant praise
this is that using a modern edition, with a written-out realization of on a craftsman. So perhaps that is all I am doing when I call a violin-
the figured bass, cannot produce a performance in full compliance ist or pianist a performing 'artist.'
with the score. And that is because the score calls for an improvised I do not believe so. I do not believe the cases are the same. Think
performance of the notes in the right hand. An improvised per- of how odd it would be to say of someone: 'She is a real artist with
formance produces a sense of spontaneity, and variety among per- the violin.' What else would she be with a violin? 'He is a real artist
formances of the same work that a prepared, written-out figured with a monkey wrench' makes sense, because a plumber is not an
bass lacks. artist and a monkey wrench not customarily a tool of the artistic
One way oflooking at the keyboard accompanist in Bach's day, trade. Contrariwise, it makes no sense to say 'She is a real artist with
then, is as a kind of composer himself. The right hand notes in the the violin' just because classical performers are agreed on all hands
performance are his 'composition.' To realize a figured bass is, in a to be artists and violins are some of the tools of the performing

very real sense, to engage in an act of musical composition. The per- artist's trade.
son who does that is a composer. So what we see here is that at least So musical performers appear to be artists, and their per-
one kind of musical performance is a form of musical composing. formances consequently works of art. But what kind of works?
This provides the key to determiningjust what kind of thing a musi- The obvious answer is musical works. And that answer poses yet
cal performance is. And that determination is my next task in this another question. The work the performer is performing, in most
chapter. instances, was composed by someone else. Bach composed the flute
We know that a performance is, at least, a compliance with the sonata. Samuel Baron played it. There does not seem to be room in
score . As well, we now have some idea, in a very practical but infor- the equation for another work and another composer. There is
mal way, what compliance with a score amounts to, even though we though; and, if we go back for a moment to figured-bass notation,
do not have , and will not get in this book, a logical definition or anal- we will see why.
ysis of score compliance. The next problem is how to characterize Remember that, when a harpsichordist realizes the figured bass
the musical performance beyond the mere minimal condition of in his right hand, he is really, literally, composing; putting notes
compliance with the score. where none was there before . Not only that, his composition will be
Why not begin with the obvious fact that musical performers, in different from another accompanist's. If he is good enough, there
the classical music tradition, at least, are called performing 'artists'? may even be a recognizable style to his figured-bass realization, dif-
For, if they, as performers, are artists, then what they produce, per- ferent from another accompanist's style, if she is good enough. If
formances, it would seem to follow, are works of art. you need an obvious example, Bach's style of realizing the figured
Of course we call lots of people artists without really meaning it. bass would be very different from that of his great contemporary's,
!fl say that my plumber is a real 'artist' with blowtorch and monkey Georg Frideric Handel. His would be recognizably Bachian; Handel's
wrench, I mean to pay him a compliment; but I hardly mean to say Handelian.
that the pipes and faucets he installs are literally works of art and he Suppose, now, that two very good harpsichordists should each
of the company of Rembrandt and Shakespeare. I am using 'artist' in improvise in performance the figured bass of the Bach flute sonata
what is sometimes called its 'honorific' sense. I am trading on the quoted from in Figure 2. What would each have produced? Well

234 ~ And the Peiformance thereof And the Peiformance thereof ~ 235
each has produced a performance of the work. But they are very dif- Furthermore, to the extent that musical arranging is a branch of the
ferent performances, even to the extent that the notes in Ralph's per- composer's art, musical performers are akin to, but not literally,
formance are different from the notes in Sylvia's. They are different composers.
compositions; but yet they are the same composition: Bach's Sonata Now at this stage of my argument I imagine the reader might be
for Flute (BWVro34). One way to describe their performances is to having the following problem. Figured-bass notation is, of course,
say that they are two different versions of the same work. very favorable to the point I am trying to make. For there is a very
Compare this example to the following. Johannes Brahms com- clear sense in which realizing a figured bass is, quite literally, com-
posed a set of variations on a theme ofJoseph Haydn's (Op. 56B) for posing, and a very clear sense in which Ralph's and Sylvia's perform-
two pianos. He later scored it for full orchestra (Op. 56A). We do not ances are different versions of Bach's work: after all, they literally
think they are two different works, and Brahms did not think so play different notes in their respective right hands. But it is quite
either: that is why he gave them the same 'opus number'-opus is another matter with Donizetti's sonata. Two pianists who correctly
Latin for 'work. ' But they are different even to the extent of having execute the accompaniment will of necessity be playing the same
some different notes, and, of course, very different 'sounds' : two notes. What they do is just play the notes that Donizetti has written
pianos sound very different from a symphony orchestra. for them: no more, no less. So whereas Bach's figured-bass notation
The proper musical term for what Brahms did when he made the allows the freedom-for the performer to 'compose,' modern nota-
orchestral variations from the two-piano ones is 'arranging' (or tion, of which Donizetti's is an example, does not.
sometimes 'transcribing'). And the result of his labors was not two But when we look more closely at what, in the case of modern
works but two 'versions' of the same work. notation, it means 'just to play the notes as written, no more, no
Arranging is a non-trivial enterprise. It requires at its best con- less,' we see that it is in the nature of music as a performing art to
siderable skill and artistry. It is, in reality, a branch of the composer's allow the performer a large degree of freedom as regards how, in
art; and there are some practitioners who have gained considerable what manner he or she is to obey the injunction just to play the notes
fame for doing it well, at least in musical circles. Good arrangements as written. For the notes, as written, allow for very different inter-
are 'works of art' themselves, apart from their being arrangements pretations. That is why we can recognize and appreciate the very dif-
ofworks of art. ferent styles that different performers evince in their playing.
So I want to put it to you now that what Ralph and Sylvia have Performers get diverse tones from their instruments. They make
produced, in their accompaniments to Bach's flute sonata, are their delicate gradations in how long they hold a given note, within allow-
'arrangements' of it: their 'versions.' They have produced instances able limits. They phrase the notes differently. They group them dif-
of the work, compliant with the score, that are, at the same time ferently, placing emphases on different ones, and de-emphasizing
their particular arrangements of it: their versions. And I want to put different ones. Some performers play with machine-like precision,
it to you, as well, that this is true of all performing, in the classical others with Romantic abandon. Some play very expressively, others
music tradition. Performing classical music is most akin to, though with understated restraint.
not, of course, literally, arranging music. The kind of artist the Because of these considerable differences in manner of per-
performing artist is is akin to an arranger; and the kind of work of art formance, we can clearly recognize performance styles of various
he or she produces is akin to, but not literally, an arrangement. kinds. French, German, Italian, English, and American performers

236 ~ And the Peiformance thereof And the Peiformance thereof ~ 237
may have identifiable national characteristics. Diverse individuals movement they have spawned that I shall call, as some others do, the
have become world famous for the particular way that they play 'historically authentic performance' movement. I shall conclude this
And they have produced students who have emulated them, thus chapter with a discussion of the movement so named, and of the
establishing a variety of 'schools' of piano playing, violin playing, further light it may cast on the nature of musical performance, or,
clarinet playing, and so forth. rather, how the nature of mv~ical performance might change under
Perhaps all of this can best be illustrated by reference to a gadget its influence.
known as the Melograph. This machine can measure the exact I said that there is a kind of contract between the composer and
length of time each note of a melody is held, and the exact interval the performer. It might be stated this way. The performer is under
of silence between notes, in any individual's performance, and contract to play what the composer has written. But the contract
record them on a visual display And when you look at the differ- also enjoins the performer to exercise his or her artistry as to the
ences that the Melograph records, between two performances of manner in which what the composer has written is played. And I use
the same melody, you will see that performers play different notes, the word 'enjoins' rather than the weaker 'allows' or 'permits' quite
even while obeying the injunction just to play the notes as written, intentionally to emphasize that being an artist in his or her own
no more, no less. Thus, although figured-bass notation may be a right, a performing artist and not merely the 'composer's machine',
more obvious example of how different performers play different is not the performer's option to choose or not to choose but the
notes, the Melograph shows us that, even where the composer has performer's obligation under the contract. The relation between
written out all and only those notes that the performer is to play, as composer and performer has traditionally been one in which the
in Donizetti's notation, what results is: different performers, differ- performer is not merely permitted freedom to exercise his or her
ent notes. artistry but required to do so, and admired for doing so well. The
As long as music remains a performing art in this tradition, per- composer, under this dispensation, expects the performer to pro-
formances of the same work will differ markedly. That is part of the duce a 'performance work of art.' This is what music's being a per-
'contract' between performers and composers in any period in the formance art amounts to.
history of Western art music for which the notation survives and But it is not so easy to separate what the composer has written
the tradition is recoverable. The composer, in other words, expects from the manner in which what is written is to be played. For the
the performer to be an artist in his or her own right, at least from the composer writes not only notes but performance instructions as
time in Western music history where there is an identifiable com- well: indications as to how, in what manner, he or she wishes the
poser and a clearly discernible performance practice. The performer's notes to be played. Thus, as the reader can see in referring back to
art is, I have argued, most akin to arranging, the performer's prod- Figures 2 and 3, Bach has written, in Italian, at the beginning of the
uct, the performance, a work of art in its own right, most akin to an first movement of his flute sonata, Adagio ma non tanto, which
'arrangement': a 'version' of the work. In music, as in all the per- means, slow, but not too slow. Of course, 'slow, but not too slow'
forrning arts, you get two works of art for the price of one. leaves the performers some considerable leeway in regard to the
Now against this analysis of performer and performance that tempo at which they can play this movement. How slow is 'slow'
I have been giving, some inroads have been made in our own and how slow is 'not too slow'? Nevertheless, it seems clear that per-
times, owing mainly to the efforts of historical musicologists, and a formers who might play it Presto, which means very fast, would be

238 ~ And the Peiformance thereof And the Peiformance thereof ~ 239
disobeying the composer's instructions. It seems equally clear that less, there are always decisions that the performer must make for
in this case they would not be playing what the composer has writ- herself. How are they to be made?
ten, would not be playing the composer's notes. For a note is not Let me begin to answer that question with an example. The
merely a pitch but a pitch with a certain duration. So to play notes in tempo indication Bach put at the beginning of his flute sonata's
a very fast tempo that Bach wanted played in a more or less slow first movement tells us in no ,, certain terms what his performing
tempo would not be to play Bach's notes, nor, needless to say, to intention was in that regard. But such tempo indications are very
achieve the musical effects Bach wanted to achieve. (The 'same frequently lacking in the musical scores of Bach's time. When they
notes' played Presto will have a very different character from what are lacking, how is the performer to decide at what tempo to play?
they would have if played Adagio ma non tanto.) Well, shouldn't it then just be up to the performer? Isn't the com-
The instructions composers put in their scores as to the manner poser saying: 'this one you decide'? Not necessarily.
in which they want their notes performed are usually described as Staying with the example of Bach's flute sonata, we may observe
expressing their 'performance intentions.' 'Intention' is probably that it has four movements that Bach has marked: Adagio ma non
not the best word: 'wishes,' 'suggestions,' and perhaps 'commands' tanto (slow but not too slow); Allegro (fast); Andante (moderately
would do better, in my opinion, because they connote the degrees slow); and Allegro again. Th.is work is an example of the form called
of influence such instructions were meant to have, and ought to the church sonata. It is always in four movements: slow, fast, slow,
have, on the performer. It is one thing for the performer to ignore fast. The other kind of sonata cultivated in Bach's time , known as
the composer's command: Adagio ma non tanto, quite another the chamber sonata, is in three movements: fast, slow, fast.
to ignore his suggestion, forte (i.e. loud), when, in the particular Suppose now that you find a manuscript from Bach's time of a
circumstances in which she finds herself, she decides mezzo forte four-movement work entitled Sonata for Flute and Figured Bass,
(i.e. half-loud) might work better. But I am afraid that 'intention' is with no tempo indications at all at the beginnings of the move-
too firmly entrenched to be dislodged from the vocabulary of music ments. Should you play the movements at any speeds you like just
aesthetics at th.is late date, so for the remainder of what I have to say because the composer has not left written instructions in his score?
in th.is chapter 'intention' will have to do. Of course not. The composer's intentions as to the tempi at which
Now I don't th.ink it is a matter of dispute that Adagio ma non these movements are to be played are easily inferred from the fact
tanto is an expression of Bach's performing intention for his flute that the piece is a sonata in four movements, therefore a church
sonata (BWV1034) that is as much a part of that musical composition sonata, and the historical knowledge that such sonatas, in Bach's
as the notes he has written for the flute. Even though there may be a time, always alternate slow, fast, slow, fast. So, if the performers of
range of speeds that would fall under the instruction Adagio ma non th.is sonata were to play the movements (say) fast, slow, fast, slow,
tanto, playing it Allegro (fast), or Presto (very fast) would just be th.is would be as retrograde to the composer's intentions as if they
plain wrong-as wrong as playing the first note of the flute part E did the same with the Bach sonata, where the tempi are clearly
instead of B. marked. It would clearly be a case of not playing the correct notes.
From the time of Bach to the present, composers have tended This, of course, is but one example of the ways in which com-
to put more and more detailed instructions into their scores with posers' intentions can be inferred by means of historical know-
regard to how they intend their music to be performed. Neverthe- ledge applied to the interpretations of scores that may lack specific

240 ~ And the Performance thereof And the Performance thereof ~ 241
instructions in this regard. Let me adduce two others preparatory to Piddles have longer necks and different bows. Trumpets and French
making an important general point. horns have valves or 'pistons' that enable them to play notes they
Modern musicians play with what is called vibrato-literally could not play prior to the nineteenth century. The long and short of
'vibrations.' It is a technique by which the instrumentalist slightly it is that the sound of the orchestral ensemble has changed markedly
varies the pitch of a sustained note to give it a liveliness and intens- since the time of Bach. The 5tring and woodwind sound is brighter
ity it would not otherwise have. On string instruments this is accom- now, the brass sound not as bright. In general, everything is louder,
plished by the performer's shaking his left hand as he holds his finger and pitch is higher.
on the string. (You have probably observed this yourselves at con- But, with these historical facts of instrumental evolution in mind,
certs. ) Players of woodwinds and brass instruments achieve the we can reach the obvious conclusion that Bach and his contem-
same effect by vibrating the diaphragm- the organ below the lungs poraries intended their music to be played on their instruments,
that helps us in breathing. not on modern ones, which may have the same names, but sound
Historical evidence strongly suggests that vibrato, although it very different. And, if we do not comply with these intentions in this
was known in the eighteenth century, was used seldom, and spar- regard, we are playing their music incorrectly: in other words, we
ingly. So, it appears, one can confidently infer that Bach and his con- are not playing the right notes.
temporaries did not intend their music to be played with vibrato to The performance practices of past musical periods are now the
anywhere near the extent to which the contemporary instrumental- subject of intense scrutiny by historians of music. And the history of
ist employs it. To play this music in the modern way, with regard to performance practice has been pursued not merely out of pure intel-
vibrato, is to play it incorrectly. If you are playing Bach with a lot of lectual curiosity, but as a guide to the contemporary performer.
vibrato, in other words, you are not playing the right notes. What I see as a whole new aesthetic, if you will, of musical perform-
It is a historical fact, as well, that musical instruments have under- ance has arisen from this historical research. In a way, what I shall
gone significant changes over the past three centuries. This is readi- call the historically authentic performance movement has urged on
ly apparent with regard to wind instruments even to the inexpert the performer a different' contract' with the composer from the tra-
eye and ear. The modern flute is made of silver, or gold, or platinum, ditional one I spoke of earlier. Let me try to explain what I mean.
the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century instrument of wood. And, Consider the case of vibrato. Under the old contract, the per-
although clarinets, oboes, and bassoons continue to be made ofwood, former is free to choose how much or how little vibrato to use, or
the kind of wood used and, particularly with regard to the oboe, none at all, for that matter, in this place or that place, on the basis of
the shape and bore are quite different from their seventeenth- and her own aesthetic judgment and interpretation of the work she is
eighteenth-century ancestors. In addition, the modern woodwinds performing. It is part of her 'artistry. ' But under the new contract
display an elaborate system ofkeys and levers almost entirely absent she must use only as much or as little vibrato as was customary dur-
from the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century versions, which have ing the historical period in which the piece was composed. Another
been added to improve intonation and extend the instruments' way of putting this is to say that what was part of the manner in
technical capabilities. which the notes were played has now become part of the notes
Although not as noticeable to the lay person, violins, violas, cellos, themselves: part of the work itself. To use vibrato under this new
and brass instruments have also undergone significant alterations. contract is to play the wrong notes, which neither contract allows.

242 - And the Peiformance thereof And the Peiformance thereof ~ 243
 Ideally, under the new contract, we could, through historical default, as it were, because the composer's intentions are not pre-
research, completely determine manner of performance in every sent to guide. In the original contract the performer's decisions are
detail for any given work in any given period. just as long as you valued, in the new contract they are grudgingly tolerated. If one has
assume, or prove, that what the composer's performing intentions signed on with the historically authentic crew, the assertion that it
are constitute part of the work, and that the performance practice of sounds nice played this way is always overridden by the assertion
the composer's time, as well as his specific instructions, constitute that it was intended to be played that way.
his intentions, it seems to follow logically that under the new con- Are there any arguments to guide us here in determining which
tract the performer ceases to be an artist in her own right and of these philosophies of performance is the correct one? One argu-
becomes something else. Her performance is not, so to speak, her ment that proponents of the historically authentic performance
work of art but a kind of archaeological reconstruction of the com- offer is that it is the performer's role, on everyone's philosophy of
poser's optimal performance. The two works, the musical work and performance, to execute the composer's work, and, since all of the
the performance work, have coalesced into one work: the one and composer's performing intentions, and the musical practice of his
only authentic performance of the work, which is nothing more nor times, are part of the work, it follows that to perform the work in the
less than the work itself, since the composer's performing intentions manner of the historically authentic performance is the only way to
thoroughly determine the manner of performance and constitute fulfill that role . To do otherwise is not to play the notes.
l think the problem with this argument is that it simply begs the
part of the work, as surely as do the rhythms and pitches.
Now, of course, no one really thinks that we ever could have per- question in favor of the historically authentic performance. After all,
fect historical knowledge of performance practice and the com- no one really possesses a supportable 'definition' of the musical
poser's performing intentions for any work in any period. Thus, if work that makes all of the composer's performing intentions,
the performer's contract is to play only in accordance with them, expressed and implied, or the performance practice of his times,
and have them completely determine her product, it is a contract part of the work. So anyone who defends the traditional contract
impossible, in practice, to fulfill . Under the new dispensation, the between composer and performer will simply deny that the work is
historically authentic performance movement, there will always be so constituted. She may with perfect consistency maintain that such
a gap in our knowledge, hence a gap where the performer's own explicitly expressed, strong intentions as that a piece be played
decisions will prevail-decisions dictated by her own taste, judg- Adagio ma non tan to are part of the work, whereas whether or not
one plays with vibrato, or on modern instruments, or plays with
ment, and artistry.
However, it must be observed that, even though both under the Romantic abandon rather than Classical restraint are the preroga-
old contract and the new there is ample room for the performer's tives of the performer, relative to her judgment and taste, not man-
taste and musical judgment to operate in, the aesthetic significance dated by the score.
of that taste and judgment is very different. For, whereas, under the Another argument in favor of the historically authentic perform-
former, the gap between performance and work in which taste ance, offered more often by musicians and musicologists than
and judgment are exercised is a cherished, positive aspect of the philosophers, perhaps, is that playing a work as exactly as possible
composer-performer relationship, in the latter it is an unwanted in accordance with the composer's performing intentions and
lacuna in our knowledge where taste and judgment prevail by performance practice of his times will of necessity result in the best

And the Performance thereof - 245

244 - And the Performance thereof
performance. That is because, so it is insisted, the composer is the has two intentions, then: what Dipert calls a 'high-order' intention
best judge of how his work is to be performed. He has made it, and to achieve the musical effect he wants, and a 'low-order' intention to
is more intimately involved with it than anyone else could possibly achieve the effect with a certain means. But suppose, in the circum-
be. He has composed it with exactly those performance means and stances we find ourselves in today, the composer's high-order inten-
practices in mind that exist in his own time and place. He has care- tion can no longer be achiewd by following his low-order intention.
fully adjusted it to those and just those conditions. It is in a sort of Should we find our own means to achieve his high-order intention?
delicate balance vis-a-vis those performing intentions and condi- Or should we doggedly adhere to his low-order intention? Common
tions that must be upset by any change in either: no change in either sense suggests the former. But in practice the proponents of the his-
can be a change for the better but only a change for the worse. torically authentic performance seem to stick with the composer's
Against this argument it can be urged that there is no convincing low-order intentions come what may: hence the almost obsessive
reason to believe its basic assumptions; for assumptions, really, is all attempt to reproduce a performance as close as possible to what it
they are. Performers may well find ways of rendering a comQQs_er's would have been, physically, in the composer's own time and place.
work that are better than the ways he had in mind. And, as for the Furthermore, what it means to carry out someone's intentions is
notion that there is such an intricate, delicate adjustment of the not at all as obvious as defenders of the historically authentic per-
work to the prevailing conditions under which it was first per- formance make out. What they fail, in general, to take into account
formed, there is no evidence to support it, only the insistence of its are what are called' counterfactual intentions.' We must ask, in other
defenders. It has all the appearance of an article of faith that exists for words, not just 'How did Bach intend this piece to be played?' but
the purpose of justifying the historically authentic performance 'How would Bach want his piece to be played today?' Obviously
rather than a principle established on independent grounds. The Bach did not intend his music to be played on twentieth-century
only possible evidence for its truth would be the finding, over time, instruments any more than the framers of the US Constitution
that historically authentic performances are better than other kinds intended private citizens of the United States to be allowed the pos-
of performance. But that, of course, is exactly the point at issue. session of assault weapons. Modern instruments were not known to
It is also important to notice that there are certain questionable Bach, or assault weapons to. Franklin, Jefferson, and the rest. But
aspects to the whole agenda of the historically authentic perform- what we mean to ask, when we ask what the framers intended about
ance movement. It is frequently asserted by defenders of the move- the right to bear arms, is what they would have intended now, today,
ment that its goals are (r) to perform music as closely as possible given the existence of modern weaponry, and what they wrote in
in accordance with the composer's performing intentions for the the Constitution. And what we ought to be asking about Bach's inten-
purpose of (2) producing a musical sound just like the musical sound tions is how he would want his music to be played, now, today, given
the composer's contemporaries would have heard. Both goals are that he had a choice between his instruments and ours. The assump-
highly problematic. tion of the historically authentic performance proponents that we
For one thing, composers' intentions, as the American philo- are necessarily carrying out Bach's 'real' intentions by playing his
sopher Randall Dipert has pointed out, may be at different 'levels,' music on his instruments is completely unjustified. What we should
so to speak. A composer may wish a passage to be played on a certain be asking about Bach, with regard to all aspects of performance, is
instrument, in a certain way, to achieve a certain musical effect. He not only what he intended but what he would have intended if ...

246 - And the Peiformance thereof And the Peiformance thereof - 247
 Finally, let us consider for a moment what might be taken for the paradoxical conclusion that the best way to produce the historically
ultimate result of the historically authentic performance if it is suc- authentic Bach sound m ay be not on Bach's instruments in Bach's
cessful: what, in other words, it is meant to achieve . It is, one sup- manner but on our instruments in our manner.
1 poses, the production of the musical sounds the composer's own I have presented in this chapter what might be called two
audience would have heard: if you will, the 'historical sound.' What 'philosophies of musical performance.' Which one is the right one?
it would mean to achieve that is not altogether clear. When two philosophies of something contradict one another,
A historically authentic performance of a work by Bach, for it is generally agreed upon that they can't both be right. For the
example, will typically be designed to reproduce the 'Bach sound' by philosophy of something is supposed to tell us what the nature of
using only those physical means at Bach's disposal: a relatively small that something is, and either that philosophy has got it right or it
orchestra, say, fifteen string players altogether, and the appropriate hasn't.
winds and brass instruments. The instruments would all be replicas Now, if the two philosophies of musical performance I have just
of the instruments employed in Bach's time , and the manner of per- presented to you are philosophies in the sense of telling us what the
formance as much like Bach's as historical research, at its present nature of performance is, what it really is, then only one of them can
stage, can determine. Would such a performance produce the 'Bach be right, although perhaps both of them may be wrong. But there is
sound'? another way oflooking at them , namely, as examples, if you will, of
If you mean by the 'Bach sound' the physical vibrations of air- 'practical philosophy.' Looked at in this way, one purports to tell us
call it the 'physical sound'-that a performance in Bach's day, under what its proponents think is the 'best' way to do something, that is
Bach's direction, would have produced, then the historically authen- to say, the best way to perform Western art music. And I do not think
tic performance would, more or Jess, produce it. But if you mean by there is a 'best' way to perform all classical music. There are only
the 'Bach sound' the musical ' object' as heard by the listener, then it better and worse ways to perform individual works. Furthermore, it
is quite another matter. For instance, a Bach-sized orchestra sounds is your taste and my taste, your musical ear and mine , that constitute
C I
very small and intimate to us. For we are used to orchestras of roo the final court of appeal.
players and more. And we hear historically authentic performances But the good news is that, with regard to musical performance,
as reconstructions of a past tradition, whereas Bach's audiences, we can have it both ways. The so-called historically authentic man-
obviously, did not hear them that way at all, but as the sounds of ner of performance is now flourishing alongside what is some-
their times. Let us call this other sound 'musical sound.' times called 'mainstream' performance practice. You can hear your
Now which sound is the 'historical sound'? Is it the physical sound Bach on modern instruments, with vibrato, and on 'antique' instru-
or the musical sound? If you answer the physical sound, then the his- ments without. There are , of course, the zealots who will have it
torically authentic performance method does produce it, or at least only one way or the other. For most of us, though, pluralism is to be
something like it. But if your answer is the musical sound, then it preferred.
does not. And it is hard to find aesthetic reasons for wanting to pro- With the discussion of musical performance I draw to the end
duce the physical sound rather than the musical sound. For it's the of my story. There are , of course, many more questions of musical
musical sound, after all, that matters: that is the bearer of the music's philosophy than those I have raised in these pages, and many more
aesthetic and artistic properties. Thus we arrive at the somewhat aspects to the questions I have raised that I have not been able to

248 - And the Peiformance thereof And the Peiformance thereof - 249
explore. But there is one question outstanding that for me has always
been paramount.
Most of the music in the world, past and present, as I have had
occasion to mention before, is sung music: music with a meaning-
ful text. Pure instrumental music, associated so closely with the CHAPTER 13
Western musical tradition, is neither the most common nor the
most popular. And there is something about it that is profoundly
puzzling. It is sound, of course: sound intentionally produced for Why should you Listen?
people to listen to in rapt attention. But it is sound that, unlike
speech, does not convey any readily apparent message or meaning.
That beingthe case, why in the world do we listen to it (atleastthose
of us who do)? What does it have to offer us if not communicated
meaning? That question perplexes me mightily, as it does others.
And I can think of no better way to end this introductory explora-
tion of musical philosophy than by raising and, I hope, at least
beginning to answer it. Why should you listen to symphonies, sonatas, string quartets, and
the rest of what constitute the absolute music repertoire? On first
reflection that sounds like a pretty silly question (as do so many
other questions that we think of as the peculiar domain of philo-
sophy). Such music has given pleasure for centuries to generations
of listeners of all kinds. It is very likely it will give pleasure to you if
you are willing to take the trouble to listen in an appropriate way.
That's why you should listen. Do you need a better reason?
But that would be to misconstrue the real significance of the
question, Why should you listen? Of course the question already
assumes that you know absolute music gives pleasure or satisfaction
or whatever else you think best describes your experience. The ques-
tion really is, rather, Why should you want this kind of pleasure or
satisfaction instead of some other kind? And that question has some
depth to it, because of what we think absolute music is and because
of what some of us, anyway; think it isn't.
What we all think absolute music is, needless to say, is fine art,
along with painting, sculpture, the poem, the play, the novel, and, in
our own times, the moving picture. What many of us think it isn't

250 ~ And the Performance thereof

- which all of those other things so predominantly are- is repres- Schopenhauer called Leibniz's Principle of Sufficient Reason the
entational or imbued with linguistic content. These two, what Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason- let's just call it
absolute music is, and what it isn't, have been, since the eighteenth the Principle, for short- because he thought the reasons for things
century, in continual conflict with one another. We all feel this and events were framed in four different ways: in terms of cause and
conflict. And it is this conflict that lies at the heart of the perplexity I effect, premise and conclusion, motive and action, space and time.
have tried to express in the question, Why should you listen? Thus, the Chicago fire was caused by Mrs O' Leary's cow kicking
The thinker who first understood and expressed clearly the over a lantern, the conclusion that Socrates is mortal follows from
perplexity about absolute music of which I have been speaking is the premises that all men are mortal and that Socrates is a man,
Schopenhauer. He also had the glimmering, although confusedly, Orestes killed Clytaemestra from the motive of revenge, and, finally,
of what I think is at least part of the right answer. So it is to all that we perceive and encounter occurs within the confines (if you
Schopenhauer's philosophy of music that we must now return. will) of space and time, the conditions of our experience. These
But before we do that, I want to make it clear that there isn't categories, which comprise the Principle, rule, indeed dominate,
one answer to the question, Why should you listen? There are many our practical and theoretical lives: our lives as doers and thinkers.
answers, and some of them have already been given in earlier With the Principle in hand, I go on to Schopenhauer's theory of
chapters of this book. For, wherever I have tried to explain what the the fine arts. We are, as Schopenhauer saw it, rather like slaves to the
elements of enhanced formalism are , wherever I have tried to reveal Principle. It gives us no rest, but drives us relentlessly on to reason
what I think are the things in absolute music that we enjoy, and from effect to cause, action to motive, inference to conclusion, in a
how we enjoy them, I have been giving answers to the question, never-ending quest for a finality we can never achieve, always under
Why should you listen? However, there is , I want to suggest, a more the domination of space and time, the conditions under which we
general answer to our question, Why should you listen?, to which are compelled to perceive our world. Schopenhauer compares the
the other answers, so to speak, contribute. And that is the answer human condition to the Wheel of Ixion, in the Greek myth. Ixion,
I want to pursue here, in my final chapter, with Schopenhauer's in the myth, made amorous advances to Hera, the wife of Zeus. As
help. his punishment for this outrage, Zeus bound Ixion to a wheel that
Schopenhauer thought that all of us organize our world, the is forever whirled through the air. Like Ixion, we are bound to a
world, under the categories that comprise what he called the wheel, the wheel of the Principle, around which we revolve in a
Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason. The Principle never-ending dance of unmitigated striving.
of Sufficient Reason, which was put forward by the great German Unlike Ixion in the myth, however, we have a means of at least
philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646- 1716), simply temporary escape: a temporary exit from the wheel of life, the
states that nothing happens without a reason , there is a sufficient wheel of the Principle. It is the fine arts. For it is the gift of the artist
reason for everything there is and everything that happens. That to be able to liberate himself from the thraldom of the Principle,
doesn't sound very controversial, and I imagine all of my readers at least for intermittent periods of time.'In other words, the artist
would agree to it. It merely says that nothing exists or happens with- is able to see the world, or, in a sense, s~_.ili!:gugh it, free of the
out there being a reason or cause or explanation for it, whether or 2ri._n_Qple" He is able, in something like a mystical illumination, to
not we know what the reason or cause or explanation is. experience things outside cause and effect, premise and conclusion,

252 ~ Why should you Listen? Why should you Listen? ~ 253
motive and action, space and time. When he does this, he perceives, represents but in the fact, as I have argued throughout this book,
through the veil of appearances, the eternal ideas that lie behind. that absolute music does not represent at ~: it is simply not a
These ideas he can represent in works of art that we can perceive and rep~tational art.
that, while we do, liberate us from Ixion's wheel, allowing us to see This brings us to Schopenhauer's second idea: that the fine arts
what the artist saw. Art is our liberation from the Wheel oflxion, the are liberating. Again, I think there is some truth here, but a different
wheel oflife, the Principle. truth from the one that Schopenhauer sees. For what makes music
But, among the arts, music, on Schopenhauer's view, is very spe- unique among the fine arts is not only the negative fact that it does
cial, as we saw in an earlier chapter. The other arts reveal the ideas not represent (or in any other way possess 'content'). There is also
behind the appearances . .But mmic relleals what is behiruithe ideas: the positive fact that, unlike the other fine arts, music alone is the
th.!_basis of all reality, the striving metaphysical wi)!. (Just why liberating one. The two facts are closely related.
Schopenhauer thought will is somehow the most basic reality of the If we are to salvage from Schopenhauer's reflections on the fine
world is an obscure question that there is no need for us to grapple arts anything of value for ourselves, we must, I think it is obvious,
with here. ) dismiss straightaway his way of structuring the world into appear-
Now I do not expect readers of this book to put much credence in ance, idea, and will. I cannot believe that this world- structure can
these views of Schopenhauer's, which must seem to them, as they form any part of our world view, which, I take it, is that of modern
do to me, extremely bizarre in many ways. But there are two ideas science, at least in so far as the lay person can comprehend it
here that it seems to me do have value for us if we alter them appro- (although I am not ruling out the possibility that, for many people,
priately to our purposes. They are the ideas of liberation, and of the scientific world view exists side by side with a religious world
music's special, unique status among the fine arts. Let us look at view as well). And, if we reinterpret Schopenhauer as saying that the
music's uniqueness first. fine arts liberate us from thinking about the world we experience
Schopenhauer realized that absolute music is very different from every day of our lives, the world in which we live and die, or, in his
the other fine arts. Unlike many ofhis predecessors, however, he did way of describing it, the world of cause and effect, motive and
not think that it is so different from them that that difference dis.- action, inference and conclusion, space and time, then I think he is
qualifies music as a fine art. He argued that our experience of music seriously mistaken.
is very much like our experience of the other arts, and that, since our Leaving aside for the moment the art of absolute music, it seems
experience of the other arts depends so heavily on their representa- clear that all of the other fine arts, painting, sculpture, drama, the
tional character, it must follow that music is representational too. movies, and literary fiction in general, have, for most of their his-
What makes it unique is not that it fails to represent but the uni ue- tory, had the 'real world' as their subject matter. I will call these arts,
ness of what it represents. All the other arts represent the ideas. when they do have real-world content, the arts of content or, for
Music alone represents t e will. short, the 'contentful arts.'
Now Schopenhauer was certainly right that absolute music is To be sure, various works of the contentful arts differ a great deal
unique among the fine arts (although that does require some as regards their involvement with the 'real world.' Works of fantasy
qualifications to come). He was quite wrong, however, about where distort it considerably, so-called escapist art makes it better for us
that uniqueness lies. It lies not in the uniqueness of what music than it really is , and another way of describing that kind of art is as

254 - Why should you Listen? Why should you Listen? - 255
 'wish-fulfillment' art. But even such genres of the contentful arts with 'worlds' to inhabit imaginatively or, perhaps, to observe: 'art
that greatly distort 'reality' are in touch with it. More import- worlds,' so to speak. Different works present, of course, different
ant, much of the art we consider truly great or profound is just worlds. But each world is a version of our own. They may be great-
that art-particularly literary art and dramatic art- that raises for ly altered worlds, as in the case of fantasy or science fiction. They
us the profoundly difficult, disturbing moral, political, social, and may be close relations of our world, as in the case of'realistic' film,
philosophical problems of the real world: just the world of cause novel, and drama.
and effect, premise and conclusion, motive and action, space and It is, of course, part of the charm, the attraction of contentful
time, from which Schopenhauer thought it rescues us. In short, works of art that they afford us exit from our world and entrance, at
Schopenhauer to the contrary notwithstanding, the fine arts, least as observers, into theirs; and sometimes that is all we want or
absolute music excepted, have been, for most of their history, the require. But even so, many, if not most, of the contentful works of
contentful arts; and as such they have been knee deep in reality. art we place the highest value on present us with versions of our
But there remains the art of absolute music to consider. And it is world that reflect back on it in ways that, far from being 'escapist,'
here, it seems obvious to me, that Schopenhauer's dream of an art compel us to think of our own world and its- which is to say, our-
that liberates from the Wheel oflxion is fully realized. Music, alone problems. Perhaps an example might help.
of the fine arts, makes us free of the world of our everyday lives. In his wonderful film trilogy, Marius, Fanny, and Cesar, Marcel
Thus Schopenhauer turns out to have been right. ~q~e. Pagnol presents us with what can best be described as a 'world' : a
Its uniqueness, however, does not lie in its unique object of repres- cinematic ' art world,' if you will. Anyway, that is the way I, and most
entation; rather, in the fact that it does not represent, does not poss- of the people I know who have seen these movies, think of them. In
ess content at all. Hence it is unique in the fact that it alone of the this world, full of richly developed and generally lovable characters,
fine arts is the 'liberating' art. Furthermore, Schopenhauer turns the young people, Fanny and Marius, fall passionately in love. But
out to have been right, too, that fine art fre~sli:om the world Q_f Marius has the Wanderlust. He wants to sail away on a ship, experi-
the Erinci le- from the world of our practical, philosophical, polit- ence the sea, and go to exotic places. He definitely does not want to
ical, existential angst. He was surely wrong, though , in his ascribing remain in Marseilles and live his father's Cesar's, settled, middle-
this to fine art across the board. For the contentful arts, at least in class life as a cafe-owner whose greatest pleasure is to sit around
mant, if not most, of their most admired and valued instances, do with his friends, arguing and drinking pastice.
just the opposite: they plunge us into our world with a vengeance, Marius finally gets a berth on a sailing vessel. Should Fanny tell
and compel us to think deeply about it. Only music, music alone, him that she is carrying his child? Ifshe does, he will certainly ' do the
is the true art of liberation. And it is important enough that right thing' by her, marry, settle down, and eventually go into his
Schopenhauer had an inkling that there must be some point at father's business. She decides not to reveal her secret because she
which fine art and liberation from the Principle intersect: that point feels Marius will forever resent the loss of his chance for adventure.
is absolute music. Let us look at the nature of'musical liberation' (if He sails away, leaving poor Fanny in her (to him unknown) predica-
I may so call it) a bit more closely. ment, from which she is rescued by marriage to the elderly Panisse,
It seems appropriate to describe contentful works of art, at least a kind widower who provides a home for Fanny, becomes father to
those of the more important or elaborate kind, as presenting us her son, and saves her the disgrace ofhaving her child out of wedlock.

256 - Why should you Listen? Why should you Listeni' - 257
 Marius, however, has second thoughts, returns to Marseilles, only their problems, we are thinking about our problems too. Far from
to find his beloved Fanny married to Panisse. The young people giving us respite from our world and the Principle, such works of art
fall into each other's arms in a passionate embrace only to be con- as Marcel Pagnol' s trilogy, which form so large a part of the art of the
fronted by Cesar, who lectures them on their duty to renounce West, our art, plunge us into our own lives and our own problems in
their love rather than hurt the good Panisse, who has been both a the most intense way.
devoted husband to Fanny and a loving father to her child, even Absolute music too presents us with worlds of art into which we
though he is not his biological son. The lovers acquiesce in Cesar's enter or, if you prefer, that we observe. Beethoven's Fifth Symphony,
moral assessment of their situation, and Marius departs once again, like Pagnol's trilogy, is an art world of its own: a sound world. But,
this time to a town some few miles from Marseilles, where he opens unlike Marius, Fanny, and Cesar, it is not a version of our world:
a car repair shop. From here he watches his son grow into early it is a world unto itself, as are all the art worlds of music alone.
adolescence without ever revealing to him his true identity, even Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is truly a world full of sound and fury,
after, by accident, they meet and become friends . signifying nothing. That is not a defect in it. To be 'senseless'-to
When the boy is about 15 years old, Panisse dies. And finally, after lack semantic or representational content- is not, as we have seen
these years of renunciation, Fanny and Marius marry and, we hope, earlier, something ' missing' from an artifact that was never meant to
'live happily ever after.' possess it in the first place.
The world of Pagnol's trilogy is, needless to say, not my world, To be sure, we do use words of our ordinary, workaday world to
nor yours (unless, of course, you are the son of a cafe-owner, or the describe absolute music. We say that Beethoven's Fifth Symphony
daughter of a fishmonger, in Marseilles, France). It is, nevertheless, has the qualities of conflict, and resolution, struggle, and, in the end,
certainly a world that we are meant not only to observe, but to think triumph. But they are the struggle, drama, conflict, and triumph of
about. Did Fanny do the right thing in not telling Marius that she no one. They are the phenomenal, heard properties of the music
was pregnant? (Consider the chain of unhappy events her decision its_clf. And it is worthy of note that absolute music, unlike , ; - y .
initiated. ) Did Cesar give Fanny and Marius wise counsel in con- art of the West that I know of, can be described in a purely technical
vincing them to renounce their love so as to avoid hurting Panisse language that has no application at all to anything external to music
and violating Cesar's code of middle-class morality? (Think of the itself: a symptom, I think, of its self-contained character.
hurt done to Marius's son, who was to grow into adolescence with- Thus absolute music is truly the liberating art that Schopenhauer
out having or benefiting from the companionship of his biological sought, wrongly, in all of the arts. And this liberating function is, so
father, not to mention the unhappiness caused to Fanny and to speak, absolute music's overarching, comprehensive charm.
Marius. ) Pagnol leaves no doubt in the viewer's mind about what his Other charms it has as well, and we have become acquainted with
(Pagnol's) answers to these questions are. But it seems clear as well them in previous chapters. But the joy ofliberation it is always ready
that part of the experience we are meant to have in viewing these to give us, along with the rest, if we are receptive.
films is the experience of questioning for ourselves whether Fanny, Here one may begin to wonder about just what kind of'charm'
Marius, Cesar, and the rest acted wisely or well in the circumstances. this liberating charm of absolute music might really amount to. It
And, because these characters are, after all, not so unlike us, their sounds more like, as it were, a negative rather than a positive one:
circumstances possible circumstances for us, when we think about that is to say, the removal of something unpleasant rather than the

258 - Why should you Listenf Why should you Listenf - 259
imparting of a real, captivating satisfaction- the kind of hedonic what Schopenhauer had in mind when he wrote of the arts as giving
'rush' that music-lovers get when they listen to the great master- us release from the Wheel oflxion.
pieces of the absolute music repertoire. I should add, by the by, that one needn't share Schopenhauer's
I think this negative view of music's liberating power can be dis- generally pessimistic view of human existence to appreciate the
pelled if we give a little attention to just what the cessation of pain liberation from the affairs of 'real life as we know it' that absolute
or discomfort, at least in certain circumstances, really amounts to. music, so I am arguing, provides. You don't have to be downcast or
In Plato's famous dialogue , the Phaedo, which purports to give an miserable to feel the liberating uplift upon entering the world of
account of Socrates' last day, before his execution by the Athenian music alone: in other words, you don't have to wait until you need
state, Socrates is represented as maintaining that the experience of 'therapy' to go to a concert. I think there is always some burden to
ceasing to be in pain is itself a positive pleasure. And I think that if be lifted by the musical experience. But nor am I denying that this
you recall your own experience of intense pain giving way to release liberating effect is particularly potent when one is downcast or mis-
from it you will see what Socrates was getting at. Freedom from erable: weighed down by the petty or powerful aggravations of the
pain itself, particularly when experienced for protracted periods of human condition. Again, I ask the reader to determine for him- or
time, is not particularly noted. To put it directly, you just get used to herself whether my experience in this regard is shared.
it. What Socrates was talking about is the process of going.from a state Many of my readers will, I am sure, have found the foregoing
of pain to a state of its absence. It is that experience, the process reflections on the liberating power of absolute music too speculative
of liberation from pain, that, Socrates was telling us, is a positive and highfalutin for their taste. For those who do, I suggest that the
pleasure. And my own experience is that he was right: it is one of other charms of absolute music described in previous chapters as
the most intense pleasures possible, particularly, I think, when you constituting what I called 'enhanced formalism' will suffice as an
are reflecting on it while it is happening. Whether it is your experi- account of why you should listen. But, for those who are willing to fol-
ence as well you must decide for yourselves (although I hope your low me a bit further in this speculative venture, I will continue in this
pains will be few and far between). vein for just a little while longer.
rr am arguing, then, that listening to absolute music is, among Unlike Schopenhauer, I have maintained that music is unique
other things, the experience of going from our world, with all of its in possessing the liberating power of which I have just now been
trials( tribulations, and ambiguities, to another world, a world of pure speaking. But I also added the warning that the uniqueness claim
sonic structure, that, because it need not be interpreted as a rep- would need to be somewhat qualified. Now is the time to do so. For,
resentation or description of our world, but can be appreciated on its strictly speaking, neither is music totally unique among the fine arts
own terms alone, gives us the sense of liberation that I have found in this power ofliberation, nor is this power confined to the fine arts
appropriate to analogize with the pleasurable experience we get in alone. There are other human works and activities that also, as part
the process of going from a state of intense pain to its cessatio~I of their charm, possess the power to transport us to pure structural
have emphasized that this feeling of liberation, like the liberation worlds.
from pain, is a positive rather than a negative feeling: that it is a Among the fine arts in the Western tradition, what is sometimes
palpable pleasure or satisfaction rather than simply a release from called 'non-objective,' sometimes 'abstract,' visual art is, at least on
something bad. And I am emboldened to think that this is perhaps first reflection, art of pure aesthetic structure. And such non-artistic

260 - Why should you Listen? Why should you Listen? - 261
activities as chess, or, even more obviously, the contemplation of But before I close I want to give my reader an important bit of
pure mathematics provide, it has seemed to many participants in prudential advice . Don't believe anything I have written. This is an
these endeavors, just that kind of experience of pure aesthetic struc- introduction to my philosophy of music. There is probably no view I
ture that I have been ascribing here to absolute music. Furthermore, have put forward here that enjoys universal assent. I have tried to
if the experience of pure sonic structure, in absolute music, provides give a fair account of the opposition in the appropriate places, but I
liberation, there is no reason to believe that the contemplation of am certain that the opposition will not think so. So beware! You had
pure visual structure, pure mathematical structure, or an elegant better give the opposition a separate hearing.
game of chess does not do so as well. The point of an introduction to any branch of philosophy ought
Pure mathematics-that is to say, mathematics not being used as to be not to convey information but to get the reader to think about
part of the scientific representation of nature-is a particularly inter- the relevant questions as an independent agent. It was to make this
esting case in this regard, just because it is so typically described by point that I employed, in my epigraph, the quotation from Plato's
mathematicians in aesthetic terms. One proof is frequently pre- Phaedo in which Socrates adjures his disciples to think for them-
ferred to another because it is more elegant or more beautiful or, in selves, after he is gone. It is the only quotation in this book. I could
general, more aesthetically satisfying. Philosophers have argued think of no better way of beginning it than with Socrates' admoni-
over the significance of aesthetic considerations in pure mathem- tion. And I can think of no better way of ending it. 'If you think that
atics. But few have denied their presence. what I say is true, agree with me; if not, oppose it with every argu-
What, then, is left of the 'uniqueness' claim for absolute music, ment and take care that in my eagerness I do not deceive myself and
given these considerations? Perhaps this: that among the fine art~ you and, like a bee, leave my sting in you when I go. '
in the Western tradition, absolute music has completely overshad-
owed the rest as the pure abstract art iiberhaupt. Apparently, th~~e
fhearui"s and not the sense of sight is by far the most amenable to
being pleased and intrigued by pure formal structure, in the absence
of representational or semantic content. Why this should be so is a
matter of speculation and debate. And for present purposes we will
have ~o leave it at that.
With these considerations of what I have called music's 'liberat-
ing power' I have reached a reasonable place, I think, to conclude my
introduction to a philosophy of music. It is my end but not the end.
There are many topics I could go on from here to discuss, and they
are no less worthy of discussion than the ones I have already dis-
cussed. However, a book must end somewhere, and for this book
here, with the question of Why should you listen?, seems as good a
place as any.

262 - Why should you Listen? Why should you Listen? - 263
 Chapter 2 A Little History

Plato's reflections on music and the other arts are to be found largely in the
Republic, books III and X. There are many good translations available. Book
VIII, chapter 5, of the Politics is the source of Aristotle's reflections on the
READINGS musical emotions. But the Poetics is also to be consulted for further illum-
AND REFERENCES ination . Both the Politics and the Poetics are available in English translation.
The relevant writings of the Camerata , on musical expression and other
related matters, can be found, in English, in the historical anthology Source
Readings in Music History (1950), edited by Oliver Strunk. They are con-
tained in section VIII.
Those interested in Descartes's theory of the emotions will find that
there is at least one complete translation into English of The Passions of the
Chapter 1 Philosophy of. ..
Soul (1966), as well as extracts from it in various anthologies of Descartes's
There are many short introductions to philosophy meant for the novice writings.
and beginning student. Some of them are good, some indifferent. But two The most important and influential musical treatise outlining a theory
stand out head and shoulders above the rest. First, there is Bertrand of the musical emotions on Cartesian principles is by the eighteenth-
Russell's enduring classic, The Problems ofPhilosophy, originally published in century composer and theorist Johann Mattheson (1681- 1764). It is called,
1912, and still going strong. And for a more recent take on what philosophy in German, Der vollkommene Capellmeister, and has been translated into
is, for beginners, one cannot recommend too highly What Philosophy Is: English, in its entirety, by Ernest C. Harriss (1981). It is not for the faint of
A Guide to the Elements (1968), by the distinguished American philosopher heart and should be consulted only by those most devoted to the history of
Arthur C. Dan to . the subject. The core ofMattheson's account of the emotions in music can
The philosophy of music being a branch of the philosophy of art, the be found in part I, chapter Ill, and part II, chapter XIV. These portions have
beginning student may also find useful a general introduction to the latter been excerpted and translated by Hans Lenneberg in thejoumal of Music
subject. As with general introductions to philosophy , there are many, and Theory, 2/ l-2 (1958).
some that are good. A perennial favorite is Richard Wollheim, Art and its Those interested in a full account of Schopenhauer's theory of music,
Objects: An Introduction to Aesthetics (1968). Also highly recommended is the and its place in his theory of the fine arts should consult vol. I, book Ill, of
more recent Philosophy of Art: A Contemporary Introduction (1999), by Noel The World as Will and Idea (1819), as well as vol. II, chapters XXIX- XXXIX.
Carroll. Volume II was published many years after the first volume (1844) as a sup-
A word about 'Wee Willie' Keeler. He was born William Henry Keeler, plement to it. The complete work, in two volumes, exists in two English
in 1872, in Brooklyn, New York. He was one of the smallest men ever to translations. The older is by R. B. Haldane and]. Kemp (1896); the more
11
play Major League Baseball, being a scant 5' 4 , 140 pounds. Among his recent by E. F.J. Payne, under the title The World as Willand Representation
many astounding statistics, his lifetime batting average was 341 , which (1958).
any baseball fan will tell you is pretty darn great. In 1939 he was one of the Susanne Langer's account of music is to be found in chapter 8 of
first two dozen players named to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Actually, his Philosophy in a New Key (1942). But it will be more readily understandable if
complete 'philosophy of baseball was' : 'Keep a clear eye, and hit ' em where the previous seven chapters are read as well. Those interested in pursuing
they ain't.' (I am grateful for all ofthis information, and much more, to Ted further Langer's aesthetic philosophy will want to consult, as well, her later
Cohen.) work, Feeling and Form (1953).

Readings and References ~ 265

 of which two are readily available in paperback editions. The oldest trans-
Carroll C. Pratt's The Meaning ofMusic (1931) is a pioneer work in twentieth-
lation is by J. H. Bernard (1892). But the two most popular ones, at present,
century music aesthetics, and is still well worth consulting by the interested
are by James Creed Meredith (19n), and, more recently, Werner S. Pluhar
reader.
(1987), both currently in print. Many people think the Pluhar translation a
big improvement over its predecessors . I myself am partial to Meredith's.
All three are readable.
Chapter 3 Emotions in the Music The story I have told of the rise of instrumental music, the rise of
formalism, and Kant's role in the enterprise is told more thoroughly in
For Charles Hartshorne's complete discussion of expressive qualities the
chapter l of my book Philosophies ofArts: An Essay in Differences (1997), which
reader is enthusiastically urged to read his unjustly neglected book The
is currently in print in a paperback edition.
Philosophy and Psychology of Sensation (1934). It is not readily available, but
was reprinted once, and, of course, can be found in libraries. It is philo-
sophy that is intriguing; and, for a!J of its currently unpalatable theorizing,
it is fu]J of useful philosophical insights. Anyway, for anyone with a taste for
Chapter 5 Formalism
philosophy, it is extremely enjoyable to read.
O. K. Bouwsma's bon mot, that the sadness in the music is more like the The first part of Leonard Meyer's book Emotion and Meaning in Music (1956)
redness to the apple than the burp to the cider, occurs in his essay 'The is the most relevant to the argument I have given. But the entire book can
Expression Theory of Art,' origina!Jy published in Philosophical Analysis: A be read with profit. Also to be recommended in this regard are Meyer's
Collection of Essays (1950), edited by Max Black. Bouwsma later reprinted essays, 'Meaning in Music and Information Theory,' 'Some Remarks on
it in a collection of his work called Philosophical Essays (1969), and it has also Value and Greatness in Music,' and 'On Rehearing Music,' a!J in his essay
appeared in a number of anthologies. It is a ground-breaking essay, written collection Music, the Arts, and Ideas : Patterns and Predictions in Twentieth-
in a lively and engaging style. It is well worth the trouble to hunt it down. Century Culture (1967).
My book The Corded Shell: Reflections on Musical Expression (1980) con- A comprehensive version of my view, as expressed here, will be found in
tains the complete version of the 'contour theory' that is outlined in this my book Music Alone: Philosophical Reflections on the Purely Musical Experi-
chapter. The book was later reprinted, with an extensive supplement, as ence (1990), chapters 3-7.
Sound Sentiment: An Essay on the Musical Emotions (1989). The last-named is
still available in a paperback edition.
Stephen Davies has, recently, presented another version of what I call
I
the contour theory in his book Musical Meaning and Expression (1994). You Chapter 6 Enhanced Formalism
will also find there an account of just about every theory of music and the
I have written previously on the subject of emotive properties as 'syntact-
emotions there is. Davies's book also contains the most complete biblio-
ical' ones. For those who wish to pursue further my views on this subject I
graphy of the literature that I know of, and is, therefore, extremely useful
suggest that they look at my essay 'A New Music Criticism?,' which appears
as a reference work.
in my book of essays The Fine Art of Repetition: Essays in the Philosophy of
Music (1993).
On the subject of expression and reference, the reader must go to the
Chapter 4 A Little More History relevant portions of Nelson Goodman, Languages of Art: An Approach to a
Theory of Symbols (1968), where the subject is discussed with logical rigor.
For those readers interested in getting a full dose of Kant's theory of art and
(The book's index will help the reader locate the places to read. )
beauty, there are three English translations ofhis Critique ofjudgment (1790),

Readings and References - 267

266 - Readings and References
 A vigorous defender of music's at least limited ability to 'say things' chapter 8 ofhis book Art and Emotion (1998). My response to Matravers is in
about emotions is Jerrold Levinson, in his essay 'Truth in Music.' The 'The Arousal Theory of Musical Expression,' in New Essays on Musical
essay can be found in his collection Music, Art, and Metaphysics: Essays in Understanding (2001).
Philosophical Aesthetics (1990 ). For those particularly interested in knowing more about the 'cognitive
Margaret Bent's essay from which I derived the example of how history theory of emotions' as a philosophical doctrine, it was first stated, as far as
can affect our perception of musical form is called 'Tonal Structure in Early I know, in a very readable little book by Anthony Kenny, Action, Emotion
Music,' and appears in Criticism and Analysis ofEarly Music (1998), edited by and Will (1969). The literature on the topic has grown quite large. But any-
Christle Collins Judd. one who wants to go beyond Kenny, without becoming an expert, can go
On the advent of the public concert and the concert hall, and their on to the collection of essays Explaining Emotions (1980), edited by Amelie
influence on our perception of music, the reader can consult my book on Oksen berg Rorty.
musical performance, Authenticities: Philosophical Reflections on Musical The full statement of my own views concerning how music arouses
Peiformance (1995), chapters 4 and 8. These same chapters are relevant for emotion, in which I make use of the 'cognitive theory of emotions,' is in
the discussion of absolute music's 'purity' (or lack of it). chapter 8 of my book Music Alone: Philosophical Reflections on the Purely
Musical Experience (1990).

Chapter 7 The Emotions in you

Chapter 8 Foes of Formalism
On the 'persona' theory of musical arousal, see Jerrold Levinson's essay
'Music and Negative Emotion,' in Music, Art, and Metaphysics: Essays in For those who may be interested in my views, and some of the contrary
Philosophical Aesthetics (1990). Also of interest in this regard is Edward ones, on the knowledge claims of literary fiction, they are to be fo und,
Cone's book The Composer's Voice (1974), where the musical 'persona' is dis- among other places, in chapter 5 of my book Philosophies ofArts: An Essay in
cussed extensively. Differences (1997).
The 'tendency' theory of musical arousal was first stated, as far as I The best exposition and defense I know of the concept of the plot
know, by Colin Radford, in his article 'Emotions and Music: A Reply to the archetype in music is by Anthony Newcomb, 'Once More "Between
Cognitivists,' which appeared in the journal ofAesthetics andArt Criticism, 47 Absolute and Program Music": Schumann's Second Symphony,' 19th-
(1989). Stephen Davies has defended it also in chapter 6 of his excellent Century Music, 7 (1984). My argument against was first stated in 'A New
book Musical Meaning and Expression (1994). Music Criticism?,' in The Fine Art of Repetition: Essays in the Philosophy of
In my criticism of the 'tendency' theory I have benefited greatly from Music (1993).
the thought-provoking article by T. S. Champlin published in Proceedings Susan McClary's interpretation of Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony is
of the Aristotelian Society, NS 91 (1991). My more extensive reply to Radford to be found in her essay 'Sexual Politics in Classical Music.' It is published in
and Davies can be found in my essay 'Auditor's Emotions: Contention, her book Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality (1991). Other essays
Concession and Compromise,' reprinted in New Essays on Musical Understand- in this volume should be read by anyone who wants to get a fuller idea of
ing (2001). This essay also has my response to Levinson's 'persona' theory. 'the other side.'
The question of how the painful, 'negative' emotions might be valuable David P. Schroeder's 'philosophical' interpretations of Haydn are laid
or enjoyable, if aroused by music, as some people believe, has been treated out in his book Haydn and the Enlightenment: The Late Symphonies and their
with great ingenuity by Jerrold Levinson, in his previously cited essay Audience (1990). There is a lot of documentation provided-the reader can
'Music and Negative Emotion,' and, more recently, by Derek Matravers, in decide if it is convincing.

268 - Readings and References Readings and References - 269

 The role of author's intention in criticism is one of the most vexed ques- Chapter IO Narration and Representation
tions in contemporary philosophy of art. The reader will find a good selec-
tion of views on the question in Intention and Interpretation (1992), edited by A full account of my position on musical representation and program
Gary Iseminger. music can be found in my book Sound and Semblance: Reflections on Musical
A fuller account of the problem of repetition in music, if the reader Representation (1984).
is interested, can be found in my essay 'The Pine Art of Repetition,' The views ofRoger Scruton r}iat l criticize are in his article 'Representation
which is the title essay of my essay collection The Fine Art of Repetition: in Music,' in the journal Philosophy, 51 (1976); and the views ofjenefer Robinson
Essays in the Philosophy of Music (1993). And the discussion of appreciat- are to be found in her essay 'Music as a Representational Art,' published in
ing absolute music in contrast with appreciating pictures and poems Wha t Is Music? : An Introduction to the Philosophy of Music (1987), edited by
w ithout perceiving their 'content' is laid out in greater detail in 'Absolute Philip Alperson . I have responded to Jenefer Robinson's views at greater
Music and the New Musicology,' in New Essays on Musical Understanding length in the Afterword to the second edition of Sound and Semblance (1991).
(2001). A thorough discussion , both historical and aesthetic, of Berlioz's
Symphonie fantastique , on which l have relied for various points, is that of
Edward T. Cone, in the introduction to his edition of the score for Norton
Critical Scores (1971).
Chapter 9 First the Words; Then the Music
This chapter presents, in capsule form, my own 'philosophy of opera,'
which is fully expounded in my book Osmin's Rage: Philosophical Reflections
Chapter 11 The Work
on Opera, Drama and Text (1988).
T hose who wish to get deeper into the 'opera problem ' are enthusiast- The statement of Goodman's view that the musical work is the class of
ically urged to read Joseph Kerman's classic Opera as Dram.a (1956), as well compliants with the score is to be found in his Languages ofArt: An Approach
as Paul Robinson's splendid book Opera and Ideas from Mozart to Strauss to a Theory ofSymbols (1968), especially chapter V, sections land 2.
(1985). Of all the books written on opera in the twentieth century, these are Two of the criticisms I have aimed at Goodman's score-compliance
the ones I m ost admire. analysis have their source in Richard Wollheim, Art and its Objects: An
My discussion ofMozart's dramatic ensembles, both here and in Osmin's Introduction to Aesthetics (1968), although Wollheim does not aim them
Rage, was strongly influenced by the ideas of Charles Rosen, in chapter 3 of specifically at Goodman . (The two books appeared in the sam e year, so
his well-known and admired book The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, W ollheim could not possibly have known of Goodman's position. ) Sections
Beethoven (1972). There is no better writer on music alive than Charles l- 39 of Wollheim's little book provide an excellent introduction to the
Rosen. problem of stating what a musical work is.
The presence of music in the m ovies is an intriguing and puzzling My own view, which I have described here as extreme Platonism, is put
phenomenon. I have taken a stab at it, and suggested the relation of music forward in a series of essays, ' Platonism in Music: A Kind of Defense,'
in cinema to eighteenth-century melodrama in my essay 'Music in the 'Platonism in Music: Another Kind of Defense,' and 'Orchestrating
Movies.' It is published in Film Theory and Philosophy (1997), edited by Platonism,' all reprinted in my essay collection The Fine Art of Repetition:
Richard Allen and Murray Smith, and contains a useful bibliography for Essays in the Philosophy ofMusic (1993).
anyone interested in pursuing the subject. The interested reader will also Those interested in pursuing further the example of Beethoven's sketches,
want to consult Noel Carroll, 'Notes on Movie Music,' in his essay collec- which I adduced in putting forth my view, are recommended to read
tion Theorizing the Moving Image (1996). Beethoven and the Creative Process (1990), by Barry Cooper.

270 - Readings and References Readings and References - 271

 Jerrold Levinson puts forth his view, qualified Platonism, in 'What a Chapter 13 Why should you Listen?
Musical Work is,' and defends it against extreme Platonism, in 'What a
Schopenhauer's view of the 'liberating' power of the fine arts is laid out in
Musical Work Is, Again.' Both essays are to be found in his Music, Art and
book III of The World as Will and Idea (1819 I 1844), and you pretty much have
Metaphysics : Essays in Philosophical Aesthetics (1990).
to read the whole of book llJ to get the full import of what he is saying.
The concept of first-tokening can be found in chapter V ofJerrold Katz's
A more complete version of my own notion of music's 'liberating'
Realistic Rationalism (1998). You must read the whole chapter (and perhaps
power can be found in chapter 7 of my book Philosophies ofArts: An Essay in
the whole book) to get what Katz is saying, and it will be heavy going for
Differences (1997).
the beginner in philosophy.
Finally, the interested reader will find a beautifully worked-out Platonic
account of the musical work in part II of Nicholas Wolterstorff, Works and
Worlds ofArt (1980).

Chapter 12 And the Performance thereof

For those who seek initiation into the mysteries of early musical notation
in the West, there is no better place to begin than with Leo Treider, 'The
"Unwritten" and "Written Transmission" of Medieval Chant and the Start-
up ofMusical Notation,'Journal ofMusicology, ro (1992), 131-9!. I have relied
on it heavily.
My own views on the significance of Treitler's article can be fo und in
chapter l of my essay collection New Essays on Musical Understanding (2001).
Philosophers have only just become interested in musical performance
as a subject of philosophical inquiry. My 'philosophy of musical perform-
ance' is presented in its full form in Authenticities: Philosophical Reflections
on Musical Peiformance (1995). A general work on performance well worth
consulting is Paul Thom, For an Audience: A Philosophy ofthe Peifonning Arts
1
(1993) •
To get the musicologists' perspective on the historically authentic per-
fo~mance , the reader is directed to Nicholas Kenyon, Authenticity and Early
Music (1988), and Peter Le Hurray, Authenticity in Peiformance: Eighteenth-
Century Case Studies (1990).
Some articles by philosophers I have greatly benefited from are, Stephen
Davies, 'Authenticity in Musical Performance,' British journal ofAesthetics,
27 (1987), 39-50, and 'Transcription, Authenticity and Performance,' British
journal of Aesthetics, 28 (1988), 216-27, as well as Randall R. Dipert, 'The
Composer's Intentions: An Evaluation of their Relevance for Perform-
ance,' Musical Quarterly, 66 (1980), 205-18.

272 - Readings and References Readings and References - 273